What is your Minimum Working Hypothesis?

I find it a little hard to put into words.

Huxley suggests for secular people, the minimum working hypothesis amounts to something approaching:

That to achieve this unitive knowledge of the Godhead is the final end and purpose of human existence.
That there is a Law or Dharma which must be obeyed, a Tao or Way which must be followed, if men are to achieve their final end.

He suggests that what exists outside of this is either religion, or "the darkness of ignorance, the squalor of vice or the other squalor of respectability". And I find that very reductive, to assert without some higher "ulterior motive" existence cannot be anything but dark or squalid. In other words he asserts that there's a meaning and point to existence, which is to reach a place of unification called "enlightenment" to give it one name, beyond which one's troubles and travails will be over - and those not engaged in this are content to languish in the dark.

But from my perspective, there is no such thing as "over". The universe knows and demonstrates no such thing. I'd go further and say, categorically, that I perceive no "meaning" in reality writ large, only in our necessarily "embodied" interactions with reality. We bring that with us, it's not there in and of itself. Meaning for a fish, for a rock, for a river must look very different to meaning for a person. It's wholly subjective and no ground for a minimum working hypothesis in itself.

So for me, the core of MY minimum working hypothesis, which absolutely comes from a similar place of understanding our unity with what is, is an understanding that far from being en-souled boats trying to reach some indistinct harbour of enlightenment beyond which the journey is over, we are and always will be just some stuff which coalesced some way for a span, during which time many meanings will come and go and have essentially no lasting effect; that we are "universe stuff" masquerading, at best, as travellers without a destination; that all goals and aims are at best temporary, at worst illusory, and that our endeavours are therefore much more authentic and thereby, ironically, meaningful where they focus on the journey, the transient "now", than on any particular end.

And that that, in itself, is every bit as good a minimum working hypothesis as devoting oneself to some imagined idea of transcendence, as per Huxley.

Thank you. Your explanation was very helpful.

In looking at your explanation one thing comes to mind and its a bit of a qualifying statement, though it doesn't diminish the point you made about the reductiveness of Huxley here.

"For those of us who are not congenitally the members of an organized church, who have found that humanism and nature-worship are not enough, who are not content to remain in the darkness of ignorance, the squalor of vice, or the other squalor of respectability, the minimum working hypothesis would seem to run to about this:"

It would seem that "those of us" would meet the first criterion and then at least believe ourselves to be within one of the three catagories he mentions.
I contend that the above is a smaller subset than those who are not involved in church, humanism or nature worship.

In that subset there are people who either believe their life is a mess or else unfulfilling. In which case they need a purpose which they don't believe themselves strong enough to generate and live in.

I think our tedency towards something greater stems from our supposed differences with the rest of the world, which is to say our status at the top of the food chain. Depending on culture our paradigm will be different and I don't think we can ignore Huxley's Christian paradigm. Even while comparing various religions, he does so with a few carryovers:

1. There is a purpose for man's existance.
2. That purpose is to become more "perfect".

That there is the Force- the source of all things.
That the Force is at once U/unified (transcendent) and L/living (immanent).
That it is possible for human beings to feel (love/ know/ become identical with) the Force.
That to achieve this alignment with the Force is principal impetus of (human) existence.
That there is a Path that guides this impetus.
That the more there is of self, the less there is of the Force;
and that the Path is therefore a natural spirituality and consequently, a way of Life.

Not sure if I did a Jedi version of this- but here's a shot

I like what you brought up TZB, very good point. What about here? Does that still ring true for you in this instance?

What if Huxley's thesis for this essay is fundamentally flawed from the outset?

The title is "the minimum working hypothesis"

Maitre might be rubbing off on me, but that word "working" conotes something that might be impossible. It has to be asked "can you really work yourself to enlightenment?"

One works, I believe, at a skill. To become a blacksmith or a blackbelt or what have you. Enlightenment isn't a skill. It is what we have already. Enlightened is what we are. We "work" hard at becoming enlightened because we are convinced that we are not.

Further, Huxley mentions that without a working hypothesis, we fail to have the motivation to carry out the more arduous experiments. But there is a world of difference between experiments and experience. One is made and one is had. The mountain of things we must shed may be the direct result of us sometimes being the lab rat and sometimes the scientist.

Experience, though, is engagement without an end game. But I don't think we can learn how to do that. We had known at one point. Consider a baby. We then learned experimenting. Do this thing, get that result.

So maybe the one thing we need to learn is how to unlearn. In unlearning maybe we become en-"lite"- end.

If Huxley were here to discuss this with, I suspect he would agree with much of what you've said Stu. I guess I'm missing where your MWH's conflict!

Whilst I agree that the whole notion of an MWH is (by definition) too reductive, the MWH is presented as a tool that might help people temporarily on their path. It isn't an end, it's a potential step, and quite an early one at that.

If there is a unity to reality (the universe), and if 'meaning' is part of human nature (which I would argue it is) then it must be a genuine element across the unitive whole.

It's a bit like the question of intelligence. Intelligent beings, imply an intelligent universe. Any lines we draw are certainly not random, but they are arbitrary, and only crack the unity.

I'm not sure it's accurate to dismiss transcendence as imagined either. People across history have experienced it, and for many it is a visceral experience of those arbitrary lines disappearing and a communion with the 'whole' emerging. It's like falling in love - you know when it is happening, in a way that is utterly undeniable.

And yet that experience is not a final destination. The Bodhisattva ideal, the myths of Jesus, Krishna and countless others attest to a flux of transcendence AND worldly involvement, ongoing, in the now.

I appreciate that many people do believe in transcendence, but not that it's a sensible base from which to investigate from.

In my opinion (and just that), those figures you mention just died. Their bodies decomposed, their energy dissipated through the system. Sure, there's stories of their transcendence, but for me those are as meaningful as stories of "things" vanishing from this plane and ending up in heaven or hell. I understand, psychologically, why the ego seeks to persist in those kinds of states... but again, that is part of the subjective "ground" of our current being, not the unified "ground" from which I form a MWH.

Huxley refers several times to a "final end". I'm not sure how that's compatible with a belief in a unified, ongoing system. Or rather, I'm sure it's not.

Yes agreed - they died. I meant a transcendence whilst we're alive, not after we're dead. Furthermore the transcendence is transient, so I agree, Final End is clunky language. I always assumed his language was equivalent to the end of that road, and that arrival at the end implies departure. It's a constant cycle.

To my understanding, there is a great danger to conflating the ego with the genuine Self. Running around proclaiming you are God / or one with the Force / or whatever can be an ego game - and a rather unsophisticated one at that. On the other hand those statements are true - from a certain perspective.

In communion with unity, however, we can't leave anything out. Do we not have to make peace with those subjective elements that we may find unpalatable? Even the notion of subject and object (me vs other) completely break down at this point. In this state there is no judgment as to subjective or objective.

And I'm fairly sure that words aren't going to get us there either. . . nothing new there! Won't stop us trying I hope!

Loudzoo wrote:
In communion with unity, however, we can't leave anything out. Do we not have to make peace with those subjective elements that we may find unpalatable? Even the notion of subject and object (me vs other) completely break down at this point. In this state there is no judgment as to subjective or objective.

I got confused here. Would you be able to explain it a bit more or differently?

Probably not but I'll give it a go . . .

It was in response to Stu's sensible point that the 'subjective ground' (our individual identies, with their ego games, hang-ups etc) should be differentiated from the 'unified ground' from which his MWH emanates.

I was asking whether we can exclude anything from the unity of the totality - including all those subjective elements.

When in communion with the whole surely we can't leave the subjective out? If we did it wouldn't be a union with the whole. Furthermore the whole notion of whether we do something, or whether something happens to us is (as Alan Watts suggests) impossible to resolve. Notions of subjectivity and objectivity merge when the whole system of experience and awareness is viewed in totality.

The irony of course is that this is typically what we would normally call the subjective experience of an individual - not objective reality. Even the words go wonky - which is why it is very difficult to discuss it - it can only be experienced - as countless others have reported.

The answer, to my limited understanding, lies in that fact that subject vs object is an arbitrary split that seems very real to a skin-encased ego, but is really just an inaccurate map we use to navigate existence / reality.

I suspect that didn't help :blush:

This is a pretty lofty discussion, so excuse me if I veer into the deep end…

It has to be asked "can you really work yourself to enlightenment?"

This question has been raised before, and the most notable example that I know of is in Zen, where it is referred to as “sudden vs. gradual” enlightenment. It also took root in Shingon, Japanese Tantric Buddhsim as “Sokushin Jobutsu”. Based on a non-dual metaphysic, both approaches are held to be valid in that sentient beings themselves are the conditioned Unconditioned- we are all different, but all have the potential to realize/actualize our enlightenment.

In this case, “working” IS, as working DOES. Very functional, and like any function, it can be mastered, however you define “it”; you have a goal, distinct from your current standing, and there is a path to it. The attempts to align those are ‘practice’, and what you learn from there is as Loudzoo puts it, meaningful. This isn’t to say there is an “absolute end’ to anything, just that one’s “end” can only be understood in light of one’s “beginning”.


“Experience, though, is engagement without an end game. But I don't think we can learn how to do that. “
“...maybe the one thing we need to learn is how to unlearn. In unlearning maybe we become en-"lite"- end.”

I was just working through a koan this weekend and this is exactly what came up. We let so many things get in the way of our experience that we often forget how to remain “unlearned”- empty, open, or what have you. Although it is something we naturally know how to do- we often place things between us and our experience to contextualize it. So in a way, our practice is ‘stepping out of our own way’.

The kicker to this “practice of enlightenment” is that it is a divine science- it is subject and objective at the same time- making any sort of satori, kensho, “aha moment”, or realization (which is the “END”) the BASIS or ground for further practice and introspection.