Cake Cutting Analogy of Dependent Origination

Edit: If you factor in Vishishta Advaita (qualified non-dualist) Vedanta, or other forms of Bheda-Abheda (difference and non-difference) Vedanta, then it is possible for a cake to be sliced into one big slice and several small sizes. The big size can serve as the buffer that can adjust the small sizes as much as it wants. This puts full control in the hands of God, rather than on some physical laws. And this model is more correct considering the cake is actually a simplified model for what is actually infinite. Yet, this line of thinking helps one understand the theory of dependent origination.

The idea is common in Daosim, Zen (which is Mahayana Buddhism with Daoist influences), Mahayana Buddhism and also Kashmir Shaivism and Advaita and Bedha-Abheda Vedanta-s.

In Sanskrit, this is called Pratheethya Samutpaada (Pali: Paticcha Samuppada). Its basic principle is summarized as "This arises, that becomes" (Pali: Imasmim Sati, Idam Hoti).

Now to my analogy. A cake can be divided into 3 pieces or 4 pieces. In each division, the sum of the pieces make the whole. 

Now here, a cake is being used as an analogy for the basis of reality. But a cake is finite, while it can be argued that the basis of reality is infinite. I understand, but that is not relevant here.

If you take the example of a still ocean, and induce waves at the middle, we can consider the ocean to be effectively infinite, but the behaviour of the waves will always follow some constraints. The cake analogy is just a more simpler version of that, and as usual, simple analogies are precisely intended to be imperfect, as their goal is to demonstrate just one aspect of the whole subject.

Now, if the division is into 4 pieces, the slices are always going to be thinner than the 3 pieces, provided the division is equal. It need not be, but it's better for the analogy.

Now my point is, if you wish for a larger piece along with 3 pieces of the 4 piece division, that cannot be. If you take 3 of the 4 pieces and 1 of the 3 pieces and put them together, what you get is more than one cake.

Of course, you could say it's better to have more than one cake, but remember, we started with 1 cake. You may divide the cake into 3 or 4 pieces. But you cannot simultaneously mix both.

Now of course, you could have a cake be divided into 3 pieces and have one of the 3 pieces be cut into a 1/4 piece. But that will leave an additional 1/12 piece. Or if you go back to the first condition, if we cut all 3 pieces into 1/4 pieces, you get 3 1/12 pieces. You can then combine them, and what you'll get is just the 1/4 piece. So you can never have 3 1/4 pieces and a single 1/3 piece.

Some other things are possible, such as having a 4 piece division, where one of the 4 pieces is cut into 2 1/8 pieces without affecting the 3 other 1/4 pieces. But at a worldly scale, this can only work out if all three 1/4 pieces can remain comfortable with two pieces being 1/8.

Every change you create completely affects the world. You cannot just wish nothing would change except for a 1/8 piece to be. For a 1/8 piece to be, you'd have to change a 1/4 piece into two.

Now, this analogy would seem insignificant, when you think about how, if you tear a paper in two, nothing much would change for the rest of the world. There, it is akin to splitting a 1/4 piece into two. But what would happen if you were to become a better person? How would that change in you affect the world?

Here is another analogy. I saw a towel in front of me. I wondered, what if that towel was in two pieces at that very moment? That is, if I were to go and tear that towel, that would simply be cause and effect. That would be a case where reality had a state where I was away and the towel was in one piece, and then I went over and tore it into two pieces. I have no issues with that being the reality.

My doubt was, could reality ever be such that the the towel would have been in two pieces instead of one at that very moment. Well, for starters, if there were two pieces, there would need to be an explanation for that. If I had torn that towel yesterday, then I would need another towel to brush my hair with. And if I did that, there would be no reason for the towel to be there. Now, instead, I could've torn that cloth 10 minutes ago before sitting on my bed. But then I wouldn't have thought the question this way. I would've instead asked, could the cloth have been in one piece at that very moment? Get it? 😂

We always ask, at the present moment, "could it have been any other way?" But we never ask, if it was indeed in some other way, how would we know, if it was not in this way? So the answer to that question is simply no. It could never have been in any other way. This is it.

Now, there is always the idea that reality could unfold in many ways simultaneously, and this is an interpretation of quantum mechanics too. I actually disagree with that, but not for this reason. My reason for that is because I think only one path can be eternal, without any dead ends. That is, we often end stories with "happily ever after" and begin them with "once upon a time". But in doing so, we set the stage and do not have to explain how it came about to be until then, and also how it would go on after that. This is a requirement in storytelling called "suspension of disbelief." If you ask about the origin of superpowers, then you will not be able to give a satisfying answer, as you would need to develop and entire cosmology for the universe, and still have it end up close to that of our universe. If one could do that, we could easily discover the theory of everything that way. I'm not saying that it's not possible, I'm just saying that it's not important for storytelling.

When I said it could not have been any other way, what I meant is that it could not have been in any other way at the moment you'd ask the question.

Now, once again, coming to the cloth analogy. If you were to think of tearing a paper, then in order for a the paper.to be in two pieces in the present, you'd just have to go back a few moments in time and tear a page in two. And you may be lucky if you were never going to use the book later on, so as to not cause any changes to the timeline later.

But say, if the towel had to be in two pieces from yesterday, I would've had to buy another towel, and I'd have set an entirely different timeline to unfold in that process.

Or, if I said, I wish I had an extra pillow here. Where would that pillow come from? Or if I didn't have one as well. Either way, that would affect the path the Amazon deliveey boy would take and the stock of pillows in the warehouse, and also the amount of cotton that was made use of in that time period, and how it was obtained, and so on. A simple wish like that would have to completely alter the timeline which would end up with you not even being here.

So in this way, we understand that whatever it is now, is the way in which it was meant to be. If you wish one thing was different, depending on the complexity of that wish, the reality in which you were making that wish would itself be entirely altered.

Like, if you wish you had an additional pillow, you would have an additional pillow, but you'd be on Mount Everest. That is, you can't have the cake be divided into 4 and have 3 1/4 pieces and 1 1/3 piece as its makeup.

Now, as for what made me think of this, it was when I was comparing the ontological grounds between Adi Shankara's Advaita Vedanta and Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka Buddhism - where Advaita Vedanta holds to Sat-Chit-Ananda Brahman (Reality - Pure Awareness - Pure Bliss), while Madhyamaka Buddhism sticks to Shoonyatha (void). Both are non-dual, but Madhyamaka Buddhism insists against any positive ontology. And I was thinking about whether Nagarjuna's version could explain why the world remains in duality with a specific structure as opposed to being endlessly scattered. But I came to the conclusion that regardless of what it would be, it would still add up to emptiness.

I actually align more to Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism. But there are certain ways in which I may differ from them about certain topics. For example, Bhamati Prasthana and Vivarana Prasthana of Advaita Vedanta disagree on where the locus of ignorance is. While I agree with Vivarana on this, I do not agree with it on all aspects. I do not know if I disagree with anything in Kashmir Shaivism, but my experiences may be simpler to describe than by Kashmir Shaivism. So, my beliefs should just be called my beliefs - because it is self-standing.

It sometimes feels like choosing the best earbuds from all the ones available in the market, all of which seem to do the same things. Some ideas can be a bit off, but there are a lot of ideas which only differ in the specific words they used, much like how many earbuds only differ in the skin. You can make one, but even that won't solve your desire for perfection. Only detaching from the skin and choosing function would solve the real issue.

Another example was the one where I once kept asking ChatGPT about why there were only a few Sampradāya-s based on Agama-s, rather than each person having their own tradition - or at least there being a theory to create a new Sampradāya. It kept telling me that the number of Sampradāya-s are set to match the common archetypes - and I got annoyed asking it why one can't adapt for different archetypes.

Then I realized that though tailoring clothes provide the best fit, it requires more time and money. But readymade clothes are available in discrete sizes decided based on data analysis. And even if tailoring will provide different perfect fits, one does not really need to go beyond the readymade size categories. So there wasn't even a need for an additional category to come in to place. But there really needs to be an additional category, it certainly can be done. If Bhakti Yoga is the readymade shop, Jnana Yoga is the tailor shop.

And a tailor can definitely create a new class, if it doesn't exist in the readymade shops. It'd help better to think of female fashion outfits rather than male outfits - because males do not have a wild variety of outfits. Or, I guess, cosplay outfits in general. Or a totally new clothing brand.