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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark Chance" data-source="post: 1310585" data-attributes="member: 2795">*snip!*Not really as big a contrast as many would maintain. Sensible Western philosophy (read: that which is grounded in metaphysical realism and a teleological concept of natural law) agrees with the basic sentiment behind Taoism, only rather than the Tao, the terms are natural law and reason (based on an Aristotle's use of the term "reason").My point that good is not easy also holds true in Taoism. Taoism also has its "saints," and living in accordance with the Tao requires discipline and wisdom (based on the classical definition of "wisdom," which is distinguishing between that which is right and that which is wrong).To paraphrase a former President, it all depends on what your definition of "easy" is. Taoism is not easy in the sense that it requires no effort. It requires effort, even great effort. This same idea is also found in, for example, the writings of Jesuit Jean-Pierre de Caussade, who opined that living a virtuous life is the simplest thing in the world to do: all one has to do is completely surrender to "the Way" (to mix my metaphors).Now, of course, there are great differences between sensible Western philosophy and Taoism (especially in terms of metaphysics [including the philosophy of time] and philosophical anthropology), but the core ethical teachings are remarkably similar. For another example, there is an unfortunately neglected "strand" in Western philosophy that exalted apatheia (IIRC my Greek correctly) as the pre-eminent state of mind necessary to achieve wisdom (or, if you like, enlightenment). This idea (prominent in some of the early Christian Desert Fathers, for example) is remarkably akin to Eastern notions of detachment from material things.All of which, of course, only reinforces my central point: Truth is universal and objective (meaning existent apart from perception and opinion), and in most times and most places, there is remarkable agreement about the details of what is true and what is false. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />My point still stands. Heisenberg was a brilliant physicist, but he was a lousy philosopher and ethicist. He and others like him that equate phenomena verifiable at the quantum level of matter with morality make an egregious category error. Mathematics is not ethics, nor vice versa, and mixing Vedic or Advaita Vedanta mysticism doesn't bolster the case, but rather further weakens it.As often as not, Western would-be Eastern mystics have, at best, a very shoddy understanding of the material they repeat. For example, Shankara in his Crest Jewel of Discrimination waxes at great length about the "illusory" world of sense perception. What is often missed in translation is this: The world of sense perception is illusory in comparison to the ultimate ground of reality, which is not quantifiable in any terms whatsoever, whether those terms be mathematical, linguistic, et cetera.Einstein, no slouch in the physics department himself, was quick to recognize the posturing of physicists-as-philosophers for what it is almost always is: posturing. Stanley Jaki, also no slouch in both physics and history, is an informative source for how people with specific (usually anti-Christian) agendas exploited the philosophical naivete of people like Heisenberg.</blockquote>

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