buddhism and desires.

I do believe that it is possible to live a life, in America, according to the ways of Buddhism that teach to let go of our desires. It may be very difficult for us, but it is possible.

There is a clear and definite conflict between what Buddhism teaches and how we are encouraged to think and act in our society. Our society is driven by capitalism and greed. We are taught, from an early age, that we need to buy more, eat more, acquire more "stuff" - more, more, more!!! Even those people who are wealthy often say they need more money to be happy, so clearly, obtaining materialistic wealth does not lead to happiness or satisfaction.

Unfortunately, since money is the driving force  behind almost everything, if everyone in America were to suddenly give up all there desires, our country would collapse financially. But maybe we'd all be a lot happier and satisfied!

Secondly, even holding on to people or believing that a certain job might make you happier can lead to a false sense of satisfaction. If one truly accepted that losing someone to death, or having someone you loved leave you, is a fact of life and is unavoidable, then that person would live a more fulfilling life and not get caught up in their negative emotions. They will certainly feel the negative emotions but they would be able to let them pass, and then move on. I certainly need to practice what I have just said more often in my personal experience.

Understanding of religion.

I believe that religion can be a form of Philosophy in, and of, itself. In the early stages of humanity, before science was able to explain most of life's mysteries, people thought it was the workings of God that created or caused things that man could not explain. I believe philosophy was also a catalyst to the understanding of religion because it caused man to think about those things he could not explain, which led to religion.

I certainly believe some of the philosophical arguments can change someone's religious convictions. Take Fred Hoyle and Freeman Dyson, for instance. They both had their religious views altered after witnessing some philosophical truths to Intelligent Design in their experiments and observations.

I think the whole concept of Miracles is left out of the philosophical arguments. Such things and immaculate conception and stigmata are difficult to explain and so far, no scientific explanation has been made, except for some instances of stigmata which were proved to be fake.

Artificial Intelligence

Some philosophers, including John Searle, say that computers are not really intelligent. Rather, they just simulate intelligence. However, it could be argued that, just as computers are programmed to respond in different ways to different commands, so human beings are 'programmed' by society, and education, to perform certain tasks. For example, we are programmed to do complicated things like speak a language, as well as more simply things like brush our teeth.

What are your thoughts on this comparison? Is there any difference between the programming of computers, and the 'programming' of humans by society?

I think we need to re-evaluate what we think of as intelligence just as we did about life. We learned that life can exist in places that we never thought they could and in forms that we never thought of, so what would be the difference with Intelligence? Does the fact that computers are inorganic and made up of man-made parts automatically mean that they could not posses some form of intelligence? I would think not.

I don't think there is much difference between computer programming and societal programming. They are generally the same. Microsoft created the Windows Operating System which is like saying Microsoft is the country, and the Windows is the culture and beliefs of Microsoft. You could install Windows on a various pieces of hardware but some tweaking would be necessary for it to run smoothly. This would be similar to a British person coming to live in America. The British culture is compatible with American culture, but it's not exactly the same. Some tweaking, or learning, of the American culture by the Brit would be necessary for the Brit to "operate" smoothly in America.