"People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction."

Kevin, that is an interesting dialogue you are having with Sean, so please do carry on. I've answered his last post above on the other thread. Thanks !

Hey, sorry I disappeared for a while!


Yes, so far I am following you. It is true that I get out of the way when a car is coming. So far I have only read your first paragraph, and the obvious implication is that, when the body dies, we will probably experience a cessation of our experience. Just like getting hit by a car, the answer is obvious. We know what happens when we get hit by a car, and we know what happens when there is no longer a body to take in sensory information. That's a discouraging thought!

However, I was using the word "fundamental" for an important reason. The fact I spontaneously started existing opens up a world of possibilities.

I see that you also made the point that I more often experience myself as a separate individual because I spend more time out of meditation than in it. To be clear, though, I have never experienced myself as anything but a separate individual. I only hear rumors in lore from Daoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism that says a tremendous change is possible.

It's the source of that old joke about the zen student that went to the hot dog stand and said, "Make me one with everything."

So, I concede your point that things in life are real during life, and I also admit that I do only experience myself as a separate being. I have only heard rumors about enlightenment.

Now I read Yang Jwing Ming's books, and he is a mechanical engineer who also studies ancient Chinese documents about "enlightenment." I am trying to learn exactly what a semi-conductor is, because Dr. Yang has theorized that the "re-opening of the third eye" discussed in enlightenment traditions involves a process by which the body becomes a semi-conductor. When something becomes a semi-conductor, it stays a semi-conductor.

Well, you made a strong argument here for the idea that experience stops when the body dies. I understand why you used the examples you used, I get it. I also see that you acknowledge the possibility that "our perceptions are all misguided", though you say it's very unlikely. You also say there needs to be a "deceiver," but I don't think that is really necessary. Just like the fish does not know what water is, we have no objective way to know what reality is.

I don't want to keep arguing that my experience continues (i.e. like, with my memories all intact) after the body dies. I have given you the wrong impression about what I believe. I see that, if I am indeed eternal, I was born with amnesia. Therefore, in the interest of answering the Big Question, I am very interested in this rumor about "enlightenment."

Rajiv mentions Maya, the divine play, the Hindu idea that reality is like the holodeck on star trek. That notion is central to the idea I've been trying to convey. That is one of the ideas that comes from the insights of meditation practitioners who supposedly went through a crazy change in their subjective relationship to reality.

My post is getting too long, so I'll quit for now. But can we talk about the possibility of having this experience called "enlightenment?" What do you guys think of the idea that someone can suddenly realize the answer to the Big Question? If you suddenly remember your original self, your self that is ongoing and not limited to this person you are being, you would not be able to explain it to anyone! So, enlightenment is indeed a possibility, but it may be overlooked by many of us who have not had it.

Ha ha, next time you are in a book store, read the intro to Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. There is a funny story about Suzuki's answer when he was asked why "enlightenment" was never mentioned in his book.

You say you have never had the experience called "enlightenment." I too can make no claims in that regard. How then can we discuss an experience neither of us have ever had. And what is "the Big Question?" Where did everything come from? Why is there something instead of nothing? What is the meaning of life? Which, if any, of these questions, do you expect enlightenment to answer?

Also, I find the fish analogy flawed. If we were to be compared to fish in that respect, it would be air that we couldn't know. Clearly, though, we do know about air. I suspect that, if a fish were to evolve intelligence and tool using abilities, it could in fact come to know about water, would do so, in fact, as soon as it broke the surface of the ocean.

Kevin -- you are vacillating in the position you want to commit to!

This idea about -- what we spend more of our time doing -- is actually quite the correct one to consider in answering what our own reality is. How unlikely it is for you and I, that we will decide upon and then actually spend hours, days, months and years pursuing a reality beyond the common one; the one you refer to as enlightenment. It is easy for us to not deliberately think of those who experienced it, as having started from where you and I now are. Why not accept the weakness in our own resolve?

Is this any different from the student who on starting his college, makes a resolve to become an engineer, for instance? We know he succeeds not because of the instruction he gets there, but more, because almost certainly, of the hours foregoing many "fun" things his buddies were into, and working instead at some concept or thorny problem. Which then became the base for the next concept, and so on, as his mind developed toughness and capability as he was ready to graduate.

I think those who do not get into a course of study they wish for, probably think of it all as pretty useless -- similar to us, who know we cannot do what it might take, in this other more abstract realm.

Other than Silicon, the naturally occuring semiconductor, its neighbors in the periodic table, Arsenic and Germanium can be doctored to behave as semiconductors, by a process of doping -- adding an extra electron or a hole by ion-implantation or chemical means. Selectively doping a semiconductor enables formation of millions of switches on it, which are each controlled by electric currents. So we get a sort of a hardware device which seems to understand us, as it is programmed to do, when we 'talk' to it by sending inputs as current impulses.

In this entire process how do you envision enhancing our minds by transforming them into semiconductors? Hard-wiring is the limit of what can be done with semiconductors -- and that is a very inferior level of executing instructions, like the kind you would find opening garage doors or in vending machines?

Wasn't this one of the fallacies the other thread brought up, on respecting authority for its own sake.

I also want to tell you of something which has been coming to my mind as I have read your posts. You've been talking of a sudden enlightenment which may happen with persons engaged in this quest. I get the feeling that you think of this as some phenomenon like in a physics experiment, as when maybe, in some controlled chain reaction, a threshold is acquired and the entire phenomena changes. This idea may be getting enforced by thinking of meditation as a process which somehow refines our mind in gradual stages, and suddenly crosses some threshold value transforming it into super-consciousness.

I do not wish to say my meditation experience has been more meaningful than yours, nor that I have any greater knowledge in spiritual practices than you do. As a matter of fact, I have often felt happy reading things as you describe them, knowing I would have struggled in vain to put them across.

There is something though I wish to share with you, seeing you as an ernest seeker. It is a small thing in itself, but so much at the base of everything else, that thinking about things in a particular way might put you on quite a different course than if you were to look at them in another.

Is this not somewhat of a surprising fact to consider, that at any time, if we look at our circumstances they appear like some balanced system, the kind we are used to seeing on a larger scale; like the eco-systems say, in a neighboring marshland. Were something untoward to happen within its universe, the entire system moves into action, preserving as much of its original nature while adjusting itself and coping with this new presence.

The point being, that there is always an expanded boundary of this system such that this intrusive event becomes a predictable one. Then we can go a further step and think about exercising some control on this event, such as hastening or delaying it; assuming we have enough knowledge of the larger system.

I am suggesting that, while meditating, we think of the world around us in this manner; as ever increasing subsystems, encompassing those within. We can measure our progress then as our meditation develops, in an increasing knowledge of these expanding circles of subsystems around us.

I hope this conveys something worthwhile to you. I wouldn't be surprised though, if I didn't do too well..

Yeah I agree. Try to make sure that you take a stance and stand by it. It won't be helpful to seem kind of wishy-washy. What I mean is, try not to look like you can lean either way on the side of the spectrum. I hope I was a little helpful.

hahaha thank you :)

Rajiv, I had to read your last post over and over again before I caught the meaning. Thanks for that meditation, I'll use it.

Lately, I have been making progress with Tai Chi Chuan, and I'm really able to feel a lot of tingling along the merideans as they're mapped out by Chinese medicine. So... I have a lot of faith in the Daoist mediation taught by Yang Jwing Ming. It has the ring of truth...

This is an interesting view. How do you square it with the second law of thermodynamics?

I'd really rather hear Simone's view on this. I understand she sees it as this as well !

Oh, heavens, I cannot possibly catch up on this thread! I will say, simply, that Frijof Capra's classic The Tao of Physics speaks directly to the question of Taoism and physics, and that Capra's more recent The Web of Life explores the implications of systems thinking not only in physics but in biology and other realms. Both are worth reading. Speaking of biology, the Gaia hypothesis, proposed initially by Lynn Margulis and James Lovelock (although Lovelock predictably tends to get all of the credit) posits that the biosphere functions as a complex system that seeks homeostasis by making the kinds of adjustments Rajiv seems to be suggesting.

The biosphere, yes. The biosphere is not a closed system -- it continually gets an influx of energy from the sun. In the long run, though, even the biosphere will break down as the sun ages and ceases to provide sufficient energy to sustain it. Also, I question whether the biosphere pre-oxygen and the biosphere post-oxygen have enough in common to be considered the same system in any meaningful sense. Unless you take the Gaia system as being essentially the same as long as there is some life in it, though that seems a bit too broad to be useful as a definition.

Sean, to my understanding the difficulty here is something personal to you. You look out from a point where everything can only appear the way it now does. You think it is objective, but that idea too is fallacious. The truth lies somewhere which at present is a "blind-spot" for you. You are looking for its forms and other characteristics, which you recognize objects, and even concepts in the world by. You are unwilling to see that "reality" may be so arranged, where this continous sense you have, that this much you understand, and this much you do not, is in reality something greater than yourself, always there, and your sense of understanding a slow unveiling of it.

The objective understanding you seek, of the biosphere, ecosystems or even your own life is quite an illusion. Its reality is always present, energized, if that's the term you are comfortable with, from a realm whose dimensions we grasp only in the fringes. Meditation is the process, if you will, of gradually focusing towards that center, that reality. It is in this sense that we connect with events everywhere, looking "inside".

I understand what you believe. What I can't for the life of me figure out is why you believe it. What purpose does it serve to believe as you do? What problems can it solve? How does it make living your life any easier? I can understand the purpose of a religion, even if I am not particularly religious. I can even understand the purpose of creating a more abstract sense of spirituality, if it is compatible with what we know of the world. But I can't figure out why one would choose to believe in a non-religious, abstract form of spirituality that doesn't jibe with anything we know of the world.

Is it possible for you to understand what I believe and not believe in it yourself .. one cannot even say that to someone much younger, for you would not be reckoning then with the strength and nature of the younger person's belief, which is more likely to be of a purer and disaffected kind.

Can it be possible you have never thought about this -- that two-thirds of the world, known also as the developing world, have people who do not see life as just to them at all in just these facts -- that they were born into countries which had lost out their riches to those who "colonized" them, which was a very accepted thing just a century back, or from countries which were actually left behind in terms of material progress.

You might think the philosophy of these people, specially those of the first kind, is only a mechanism for coping with their unequal destiny. It is very obvious you think this without a doubt. I will not be the one to try convincing you of anything, only give this some thought, that there are yet people in exactly the same circumstances as yourself, who for reasons of their own have felt as uncomfortable with this seeming unjustice of fate, and have looked very hard outside their normal circles.

More than me, it is someone like this who will convince you, that you are not indeed the "have-its". That those in the struggling world, for the larger part, are also nearer some more absolute truth, which you never turn to, believing that wealth is the end all of existence, and everyone saying otherwise seeks only to decieve those who have it.

Ah. It's your way of making yourself feel culturally superior in the face of inequalities of wealth and technological advancement that would otherwise make a belief in cultural superiority difficult. Okay, fair enough. It hadn't actually occurred to me that such spirituality was some people's "mechanism for coping with their unequal destiny". Indeed, if it had, I wouldn't have had to have asked you why you believed as you did, as I would already have thought I had the answer. Your meditations rarely touch on social inequalities, and so it could not have occurred to me to think that such inequalities were the basis of your beliefs. I have noticed, though, that people are always very quick to project their doubts about themselves into the minds of others. In any event, your explanation is perfectly satisfactory. More than that, in fact -- the more I think about what you have written in your last post, the more though provoking I find it. Could it be that, once the people suffering from social inequalities (and you admit that it is a struggle, a process of suffering) convince themselves that they really have the better deal, then they have every reason to accept and perpetuate those inequalities, rather than striving to overcome them? The question isn't rhetorical, btw -- I'm essentially thinking aloud at this point. We start from such different places that we are unlikely to ever see eye to eye on spiritual matters, but conversing with you has taught me much, nonetheless, if only by giving me such strange material to mull over.

This is getting rough.

But I can appreciate the laced barbs, especially biting sarcasm.

People normally aren't that ingenuitive, so it's a bit entertaining to read the different delivery systems people implement in personal attacks.

Oh dear. Text is such a horrible medium when you need tone of voice. I wasn't being particularly sarcastic in my last post, though I see how it could come across that way. I really did find Rajiv's last post thought-provoking. The thoughts it provoked are probably not the ones he hoped it would, but I still find that encountering a perspective so different from my own is teaching me a lot.

Basically in accordance with Hindu mythology MAYA is something which always attracts an human being

MAYA is nothing but your inner greed to get things an any cost
Maya can be Money
Maya can be your greed for leisure
Maya can be your lust

In Hindu culture it is said ''SAB MAYA HAI '' mean everything is just an temporary
U came in this world empty hand u walk out of this world empty hand

Simone, I went straight to ebay to order those Capra books, thanks!!I had not heard of them.

Rajiv, you wrote some very beautiful posts above!

02Nishessh, thanks for that great contribution about Maya. Is Maya the same as what has also been called "Samsara?" I think it is...


If you believe something in order to fulfill some purpose, it means you are choosing to believe it. All your reasoning is based on the atheist's assumption that people practice spirituality as so much self-deception.

Your arguments consist mostly of deductive reasoning, but what about inductive reasoning?

I wonder if you consider yourself an atheist, agnostic, or something else...

You argue very sensibly that it is logical to note the way things seem to happen and draw conclusions, but your way of thinking would only be appropriate if the whole of reality was not based on inconceivable, spontaneous existence. Your way of thinking seems to ignore The Big Question. In the past, you have said that it is purposeless to spend time wrestling with the big question, since it is impossible to answer, but the fact that such a Big Unanswrable Question exists at the foundation of reality should change the way you think about reality.

It should reduce your confidence in "things as they seem."

It should make you believe that limitless possibilities exist. You have argue that some things are highly improbable, that the continuation of my experience after the body dies is highly improbable (correct me if I'm wrong), but to me it seems no more improbable than this experience I am having now.

I think the difference between you and me is that I think there is a being inhabiting this slowly-dying body, and you think that the body IS the being. Does that seem like an accurate description of our difference?

You seem to assume that you have the nature of a human being "figured out" at least to the extent that you assume experience stops when th body dies. I think that someone like me, who makes no firm assumptions about the nature of the being that inhabits this body, represents a very pure form of agnosticism.

I mean, what have we been arguing about exactly? I argue that the fact that I am having an experience right now suggests a possibility that I will have other experiences on an ongoing basis, even after the body dies. What do you argue in that regard?

If I AM going to have other experiences after this life, perhaps there is a way to influence what experience I'll have. That means I might have some urgent figuring out to do! :-)

I'm not saying that people believe what they believe for a purpose, only that beliefs tend to fulfill certain purposes, which is why they get passed on. For instance, there is a reason many people believe in an afterlife, or that reality is an illusion, whereas only a few believe that giant scorpion-heads are using us as puppets. All three beliefs are equally valid (or invalid, as the case may be) as all three are essentially unprovable assertions. The belief in an afterlife, and a God, are both perfectly explicable as evolutionary phenomena. I was merely curious why a essentially non-religious form of spiritual belief, that seemed far more complicated than a belief only in a continuation of existence after death, and that contradicted most of what we know about the world through our senses, would be well-adapted enough to survive in a jungle of competing ideas. Rajiv's last post explained that to me rather nicely. That he meant to criticize the reason he proposed, and credited me with already having thought of it, is beside the point.

Put another way, it is easy for someone who is not particularly religious to view religious belief as a sustained form of self-deception, because really, it involves a person insisting on believing something that they have no reason to believe, unless the reason be psychological. That's an oversimplification, though. Some people merely absorb religious ideas from their environment, picking them up from parents, teachers, and friends. In such case, even the most ridiculous, cult-like beliefs may become something that they are too invested in to be able to abandon them. Remember, though, that the only difference between a wacky cult in which a bunch of idiots have surrendered their critical thinking skills, and a religion, is the number of people who have accepted the beliefs. No one takes the former sorts of beliefs seriously, except for people we view as needing help. Billions accept some form of the latter sort of belief, but how can one who does not take them any more seriously?

You're persistently inconsistent.

No, I don't have a valid reason to push evolution, but anyone who belongs to a religion is an "idiot... surrendered their critical thinking skills."

I'm glad you're right. While we're on the topic of fallacies, why not include ad hominem tu quoque?

Even if someone's actions are grossly inconsistent with what they say, what they're saying shouldn't be diminshed by it.

Let's say Joe is a flamboyant homosexual, but he is strongly opposed to gay marriage on the grounds that it is wrong as ordained by God.

Joe is a poor representative of that view, quite probably because his actions don't reflect what he preaches, but homosexuality isn't any less wrong; Joe saying it, shouldn't diminish whatever truth there is in it.

Likewise, I'd say any evolutionist who's hell-bent on encouraging others to accept their theory, is not the best representative for what their theory postulates.

You have a very odd view of the world. There is nothing much inconsistent between believing in evolution and having a dim view of religion. Nor did I say that anyone who believes in religion is an idiot. The part you ellipsed out, of course, involved me assigning that designation to members of various cults, a la Heaven's Gate. My point was that members of such groups are generally viewed (including by me) as brainwashed fools. I further added that there was no qualitative difference between the beliefs of these groups and the beliefs of mainstream religions. Rather, the difference is quantitative -- with enough supporters, any cult turns into a religion. I deliberately avoided stating the conclusion that this meant that any religious person was therefore also a brainwashed fool, because that is not something I believe, any more than I believe that just because a single termite, or even a small group of termites, is dead stupid, that therefore a termite colony of thousands of members is too. If you leaped to a different conclusion based on what I had written, well, as I said earlier, I have noticed that people tend to project their self-doubts into the minds of others.

Also, I notice that evolution hasn't been mentioned in this thread. Moreover, many religions accept evolution, and don't view it as a threat or as incompatible with their holy books. Your insistence on bringing it up strikes me as odd, therefore, as it seems to have nothing to do with the topic at hand. If you disagree with the theory of evolution, as your posts in this and other threads would seem to indicate, feel free to post the reasons for your views in the thread I created from debate I got into with Nicholas.

"People of MTV generation have no patience. They want instant satisfaction."

Does anybody else think this is a poorly worded statement for debate? It's just incredibly imprecise.

"People of MTV generation have no patience." What does this mean? Does this mean that all people of this generation have no patience? Does this mean, the majority of people from this generation lack patience? Or does it mean, they lack patience relative to people of a different generation? The degree to which "people" value patience and instant satisfaction is highly variable from one individual to the next (even when they come from the same generation). The statement above does not indicate exactly what we're debating, it just states an absurd generalization because when interpreted literally would imply that all people of this generation have no patience.

... and this is what I'm concerned about. Will this attitude not colour everything you write here?

Of course it will, when I am discussing material that deals with spiritual belief, much as your own spiritual beliefs will color what you write. The question I asked was not rhetorical, btw. I was genuinely curious as to where you thought middle ground might be found between religious and non-religious people. On many issues, when religion is kept out of it, some sort of compromise position is possible between people who disagree. You have a rationalist structure, within which people can work to convince each other of their points, or at least to explain their positions to one another. Once you are going on matters of faith alone, though, how can people have any meaningful discourse with one another? They might be able to mimic such discourse, if everyone were to accept some set of fundamentally irrational, arbitrary premises as correct, by building up a rational discourse based on those premises. But if the premises themselves are not subject to rational consideration, then how could those people ever hope to discourse with people who did not accept them -- i.e. non-believers, whether secular or adherents of some other religion?

OK Sean -- I want to put anything personal in our discussion behind. I do not think you have any bias anymore; and I'll be far more productive knowing you are thinking with me than against.

Speaking for myself, there was never anything personal in it. I have many friends who disagree with me intensely on various issues. Political and religious differences may be the basis for some very heated disagreements, but they should never be the basis for personal dislike. I suspect, from what you have written, that you would be loyal and thoughtful to those you considered friends, and that alone is enough for me to think of you as a good person, howsoever much I may disagree with you philosophically.

Yes, good call. It's an absurd generalization. I guess I would say, also, that it is imprecise to associate this generation, spoiled by modern technology particularly with MTV. Why not call it the fast food generation or the cable tv generation? You could refer to a lot of things other than MTV. So... that is a good call. On the other hand, it can be useful to give the paper an MTV theme.

I skimmed the rest of the discussion, too, great funny arguments. I can't even keep up! I think the issues covered in this thread are so broad and complex that it is necessary to focus on what is most important, most urgent. Sean is right when he says that religions and cults involve accepting ideas for which there is insufficient evidence, so what can I say? Given this situation of insufficient information, but in which a Big Question remains to be answered, I have to continue to refine my consciousness through meditation in hopes that answers will come to me spontaneously.

Perhaps I'll soon know the answer to the big question spontaneously, the same way a bird spontaneously knows to build a nest or the way bees spontaneously know how to communicate through a weird dance the location of food: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct

I bet the big question is answerable, so the important thing to do is keep refining consciousness through meditation.

See, that is pragmatic spirituality, right there!! :) That is applied agnosticism. When you look at what Zen Buddhism is, for example, you see brilliant, proactive agnosticism.

Ah. You haven't been reading your Douglas Adams. You can know either the great question of life, the universe, and everything OR the answer to it, but never both at the same time.

I may be young, but I have known the answer to life, the universe, and everything for a very long time. I also know that humans are only the third most intelligent species on Earth.

I enjoy reading this thread, but I am afraid that I lack the experience, knowledge, and gumption to enter the fray (or to contribute anything meaningful if I did).

I have often wondered just when it is that I come closest to my authentic self . . . is it while I am sleeping, daydreaming, conversing with others, in prayer/meditation, or deep in thought? I think it might be in those moments just before I fall asleep. If I were to ever have an experience that resembled enlightenment, I would question my sanity. I have a lot to learn in this life.

Too late! You have already contributed something meaningful. You have raised the interesting question of whether any of us even have an "authentic self." After all, doesn't the very idea of self imply continuity, the sense that who we are when we're daydreaming is the same as who we are when we are conversing or meditating. At least, we use the same term, "I," to describe the person who is doing each of those things. If in fact different selves are doing those things, then does that negate the very idea of self-ness?

And then, there is the question of perspective. In any social encounter we are many people at once -- the person we perceive ourselves to be, the person we are pretending to be, the person those we are dealing with perceive us to be, the person we believe that the people we are dealing with perceive us to be. We tend to assume that the person we perceive ourselves to be is the most authentic of these differing selves, but that could just be personal prejudice.

I think that the quote referred 'MTV generation' as a younger generation in our society such as teenagers.

Good luck to you! :)

Why don't you write more about this.

Possibly you are right. However, the phrase "MTV generation" does have a specific meaning. It refers to those born around 1980. At the latest, it may include those born around 1985. This means it refers to a set of people who most definitely are no longer teenagers, as the youngest members of this generation would be in their mid 20s, whereas the oldest could be pushing thirty.


I believe it is the product of six multiplied by nine, if you are working in base thirteen.
I'm sure it wouldn't surprise you to learn that the Earth was a computer designed to work in tridecimal. After all, what other number could a planet like this be based on?

Ahhhh . . . that was sarcasm. The answer to life, the universe, and everything is 42-at least according to "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." I am a big fan of Douglas Adams. Sean had talked about Douglas Adams in the post just before mine. Claiming to know the answer to life, the universe, and everything was my nod to Adams and Sean.

In the book, mice (the most intelligent species on Earth) construct a computer to provide the answer to life, the universe, and everything. After 7.5 billion years, the computer (named Deep Thought) answers 42. Here's a snippet from the book:

"Forty-two!" yelled Loonquawl. "Is that all you've got to show for seven and a half million years' work?"

"I checked it very thoroughly," said the computer, "and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've never actually known what the question is."

You see, I know the answer, but I don't know the question. I am sorry if I came across as a snide, know-it-all teenager.

Our dialogue would seem odd to anyone who hadn't read Hitchhiker's. I persist in believing, though, that 6*9 is the question, as that is what Authur Dent discovers in the novels, and it actually does make sense in tridecimal. Adams himself denied that this was intentional, but thanks to postmodernism, we can blithely ignore his protests.

Who says! Adams, I assume. He is cool, for sure. But the whole point of meditation in the enlightenment traditions is to pursue this rumor that a person's experience of reality can change. I mean, that is not unrealistic...

And it has nothing to do with the old fairy tales that have become religions. It has nothing to do with imaginary things.

Just because someone proposes a fairy tale as an answer to a serious question... that does not mean that intelligent people should assume that NO answer exists for that question!!!

Some atheists associate the Big Question with the silliness of certain religious believers. That is a mistake!!

Want to know what atheists have in common with religious fundamentalists? Both have become COMPLACENT in their search for the answer to the Big Question!!! Religious fundamentalists became complacent when they opted for blind faith in a story, and atheists became complacent when they realized that the story was silly and wrongly assumed that the question is silly, too!

But there is a third group: those of us in the "enlightenment traditions," within Daoism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Even within these traditions there are fairy tales, but not all of us accept them. Some of us fast and meditate and wait for it to happen -- a memory of something long forgotten!

What was the Big Question, again? 6*9? Adams point is that the big question isn't really a question, so much as nebulous cloud of uncertainty about what it all means, laced through with a vague terror that maybe nothing means anything at all.