Are buddhists real theists? [Archive I]

reprise

September 15, 2003, 04:58 AM

Having just spent several frustrating weeks engaged in discussions about what atheists believe and why atheism is not a belief system (::sigh::), I'm wondering if this discussion is predicated on assumptions about Buddhism which are unjustified.

As it happens, I've just been reading some recent statements by the Dalai Lama about Buddhism and the purpose of meditation in the life of a Buddhist. My interpretation of the DL's statements is that the existence or non-existence of "god" is pretty much irrelevant in Buddhism. I have to go do the mum right now, but I'd really love to discuss tomorrow the implications of some of the DL's recent statements (not the least of which is that if science cannot verify the benefits of meditation then the whole philosophy of Buddhism with have to be re-examined). I wish I had a spare $5000 to attend the conference at which the DL and scientists are going to be examining these issues in depth later this year.

Starboy

September 15, 2003, 10:49 AM

I've always thought of Buddhism as just another 12 step program.

Starboy

xorbie

September 15, 2003, 03:51 PM

Buddhism believes in a God-like thing of sorts that is radically diffirent from the God of Judeo-Christian belief. It is the total consiousness of every being in the universe (or the All).

Once you gain philosophical understanding and perfect/total knowledge of the world, you cease to exist stuck in an individual body and your consiousness is linked to this "All".

boneyard bill

September 15, 2003, 04:31 PM

Starboy writes:

I've always thought of Buddhism as just another 12 step program.

There are definite similarities. I don't think Buddhism could be regarded as "theistic" but most Buddhists probably do believe in something that could be called a "higher power."

Keith Russell

September 15, 2003, 05:36 PM

Good evening.

Whether theistic or not, Buddhism is definitely a form of mysticism, which is bad enough...

K

tribalbeeyatch

September 15, 2003, 05:45 PM

Originally posted by Keith Russell
Good evening.

Whether theistic or not, Buddhism is definitely a form of mysticism, which is bad enough...

K That is certainly true of some forms of Buddhism (e.g. Tibetan), but not all (e.g. Zen).

Anonymous Bosch

September 15, 2003, 06:42 PM

Originally posted by tribalbeeyatch
That is certainly true of some forms of Buddhism (e.g. Tibetan), but not all (e.g. Zen).

quite true. very very important to distinguish the difference between the various forms of buddhism. as keith said, tibetan buddhism is very mystical...and they have special relationships with hindu gods.:(

ab

Keith Russell

September 15, 2003, 07:02 PM

Tribal, I find Zen to be quite mystical...

K

tribalbeeyatch

September 15, 2003, 07:13 PM

Originally posted by Keith Russell
Tribal, I find Zen to be quite mystical...

K That's odd. I can't think of any Zen "beliefs" that might be described as mystical. Could you be more specific?

Keith Russell

September 15, 2003, 08:57 PM

Tribal, isn't Zen about the 'Oneness' of all things, which I view as a direct contradiction of the foundation of reason, 'A is A', which is concerned with the individual identity of each thing.

Non-rational, anti-rational...irrational: mystical.

No?

K

Starboy

September 15, 2003, 09:33 PM

I suppose it would depend on exactly what one meant by the oneness of things. Certainly from a physicists point of view everything is connected in one way or another if for no other reason that all matter/energy resulted from a single event called the big bang. Quantum Mechanics definitely has implication as far as the wave function of the universe is concerned. I suppose the oneness idea would very much depend on exactly what they were claiming was one and how exactly it was one. I don�t know much about Buddhism but my guess it that its claims about oneness are probably so vague as to be open to just about any interpretation.

Starboy

Keith Russell

September 15, 2003, 11:36 PM

Starboy, agreed.

Something that vague isn't what I call rational, so--for lack of a better term--I call such things 'mystical'/'irrational'.

Keith.

Will I Am

September 16, 2003, 02:05 AM

�are buddhists really theists if they don't really have creator gods?

Having thought about it for another seven seconds, I can confidently assert that Buddhists are not �theists�. No started or implied God, no Theism. (Gee, that was difficult�)

could they not be just making generalisations based on past experience/observations? why is it karma or luck?

any suggestions about this part?

Could be an intuitive assertion of the apparent �Natural Law� (Big Bang not withstanding�) that in Nature (I.e. the Universe) Energy is neither created or destroyed. It follows that bad (energy) must (in-net) equal good (energy). To the 'casual' observer (with only one life-time), Nature seems 'balanced'.

Pretty basic logic.

(But really, of course, it�s just an ancient North-Indian moral scare-tactic, like the Christians� Hell�, to stop people being quite such utter wossnameses most of the time).

Justice is a very powerful primate desire. Powerful enough to engender fulfillment fantasies.

Anonymous Bosch

September 16, 2003, 03:37 AM

Originally posted by Will I Am

Justice is a very powerful primate desire. Powerful enough to engender fulfillment fantasies.
complete redemption with that post will. now we know you're cute AND clever. :D

now about those fantasies.......:eek:

Starboy

September 16, 2003, 10:08 AM

Originally posted by Keith Russell
Starboy, agreed.

Something that vague isn't what I call rational, so--for lack of a better term--I call such things 'mystical'/'irrational'.

Keith.

In other words it is mystical if a claim is made with no justification other than revalation?

Starboy

Keith Russell

September 16, 2003, 10:13 AM

Starboy, it is, in my opinion.

(As long as its clear that I do differentiate between 'intuition' and 'revelation'...)

The former is not rational, but not mystical.

The latter, is both mystical and irrational.

Keith.

Starboy

September 16, 2003, 10:26 AM

Originally posted by Keith Russell
Starboy, it is, in my opinion.

(As long as its clear that I do differentiate between 'intuition' and 'revelation'...)

The former is not rational, but not mystical.

The latter, is both mystical and irrational.

Keith.

How do you know if Buddha's comments on oneness were intuition or revelation? By labeling them mystical aren't you indirectly claiming they were not intuited? I can understand a distaste of the writings of Buddha based on the many obvious mystical interpretations of his subsequent followers but from what I know about the guy I don't think he would claim to be anything other than intuitive. Please don't get me wrong. I am not an advocate of Buddhism, and I really don't know all the much about it. I've just read a bit but nothing I've read indicates that Buddha himself was mystical even if many of his subsequent followers obviously are. To be honest I do have an interest in Buddhism not because of anything in particular that Buddha wrote but because I see it as a demonstration that it is possible to construct successful religions that provide guidance without resorting to scaring the shit out of people with superstitious mumbo jumbo. It gives me hope that we might be a rational species after all.

Starboy

Robert Anthony

September 16, 2003, 01:12 PM

Starboy, you are exactly correct. Buddhism is a form of mental and emotional ascesis (UTTERLY unlike western christian asceticism), and can favorably be compared with military training; its purpose has always been to develop and sharpen the willpower of the human being, to bring about an integral focus to the human intelligence.

Keith Russel, you have made the most abysmally ignorant statements. Your baseless assertions are frankly nauseating, and endorse a completely PERVERTED understanding of Buddhism. BUDDHISM HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE WESTERN CONCEPTION OF THEOLOGY, REVELATION, OR THE WESTERN CONCEPTION OF 'MYSTICISM'. DO NOT MINDLESSLY COMBINE BUDDHISM WITH WESTERN RELIGION. If you dared study Buddhism's original texts with a clear brain, you would find that your ideas about it are shockingly uninformed and inappropriate; you have internalized the most exoteric and debased elements of Buddhism from the West's tiny store of quasi-knowledge and prejudice.

Let me say that Buddhism is scientific yet also meta-scientific, insofar as it logically examines the epistemological and existential basis of commonsense, everyday rationality--it is NOT 'irrational', but trans-rational. Let me also say that Buddhism is superreligious, and views dialectical debates about the 'existence' of any God or gods as entirely pointless and delusional. (Buddhism resolutely mocks the absolutist version of the concept of existence, the foundationstone of theism.)

All of you should actually try RESEARCHING a topic before commenting on it--Wow, there's an idea!--, instead of embarassing yourself in an arrogant display of bloated ignorance.

Keith Russell

September 16, 2003, 01:58 PM

Robert, relax.

I haven't said very much about Buddhism, and I've said nothing at all about Buddha. If you agree with Starboy vis a vis the teachings of Buddha vs. the teachings of Buddhism, then (and this may be another example of my ignorance) but it doesn't seem that you and I really have much quarrel.

Besides, I've mainly been defining my terms, nothing more.

K

tribalbeeyatch

September 16, 2003, 03:23 PM

Originally posted by Keith Russell
Tribal, isn't Zen about the 'Oneness' of all things, which I view as a direct contradiction of the foundation of reason, 'A is A', which is concerned with the individual identity of each thing.

Non-rational, anti-rational...irrational: mystical.

No?

K No, in my opinion. I just don't see anything inherently non-rational, anti-rational, irrational or mystical in the concept of 'oneness'. Does ecology contradict the law of identity in its recognition of the 'oneness' of a biological system? Does behavioral neuroscience debase the individual identities of neurons by studying the sum of their activities? Do single-cell recordings emphasize the 'oneness' of neurons to the detriment of the individual identities of ion channels? Are physicists threatening our very identities in suggesting that we might be made of the very same elementary particles as every other thing?

boneyard bill

September 16, 2003, 04:34 PM

Keith Russel writes:

Besides, I've mainly been defining my terms, nothing more

It doesn't appear that you've defined them very well. What do you mean by "mysticism" and what do you mean by "revelation" and what do you mean by "intuition"?

Buddhism is form of self-discovery. It's approach is therefore empirical as is Western science. Everything we know about the world is the result of an observation by a "self" that is communicated to other "selves." The nature of the self that is doing the observation is therefore relevant to the nature of the observation itself.

Western science presupposes a certain self-nature. Buddhism denies that our self-nature is what Western science assumes that it is. Therefore, Buddhist claims are quite relevant as a critique of the claims of Western science. Western scientific claims cannot be used to "trump" Buddhist claims since Western science starts out with a self-understanding that is contrary to the Buddhist one. So the point of disagreement exists prior to any attempt at scientific observation in the Western sense of that term.

Magic Primate

September 16, 2003, 04:38 PM

Bill, I'm in broad agreement with you, but what 'self' do you think that western science presupposes? Largely the 'self' is ignored and certainly there seems to be no consensus on what (if anything) it is, according to western psychologists and philosophers.

boneyard bill

September 16, 2003, 07:29 PM

Magic Primate writes:

Bill, I'm in broad agreement with you, but what 'self' do you think that western science presupposes? Largely the 'self' is ignored and certainly there seems to be no consensus on what (if anything) it is, according to western psychologists and philosophers.

I don't agree that the "self" is completely ignored in Western science and philosophy. The presupposition regarding self is largely derived from DesCartes and his rational self. Kant added some insights regarding a priori knowlegde i.e. the 'constructed self.'

Post-modernists have now promoted the 'deconstructed self' which is similar to the Buddhist critique of anatta i.e. 'no self.'

The modernist view is that reason and science can lead us to greater and greater knowledge of the true nature of existence but the post-modern view is that all of this is circular. We need a philosophical position from which to interpret the data. The data doesn't produce the philosophical position. All of this is quite similar to ancient Buddhism. But it is all critique.

Where Buddhism departed from post-modernism is in claiming that with sufficient knowledge of our true self-nature we can gain an understanding of the true nature of reality.

To put it in more Western terms, if we explore our self-nature sufficiently enough to recognize its non-existence, we can become aware of the ground of existence of all being.

As I see it, therefore, Buddhism is an epistemology. It claims that reason and observation of the external world are epistemologicallly insufficient for a true understanding of existence and that radical self-observation is also needed.

Magic Primate

September 16, 2003, 07:45 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill

I don't agree that the "self" is completely ignored in Western science and philosophy. The presupposition regarding self is largely derived from DesCartes and his rational self. Kant added some insights regarding a priori knowlegde i.e. the 'constructed self.'

Apologies if this wasn't clear - what I'm saying is that the self (esp in regard to the subjective viewpoint and the question/nature of existence of consciousness) is largely ignored *in western science*.

Also, I see a significant difference between the post-modernist view you describe, along with the scientific view that the self is a construct, when compared to the Buddhist view that there is no self and that the self is an illusion.

boneyard bill

September 16, 2003, 08:15 PM

Magic Primate writes:

Apologies if this wasn't clear - what I'm saying is that the self (esp in regard to the subjective viewpoint and the question/nature of existence of consciousness) is largely ignored *in western science*.

I think it is true that science has tended to presuppose the Cartesian self and insofar as it is a presupposition, rather than assumption, it is a point that Western science has tended to ignore. However, in the field of quantum mechanics this issue has more or less been thrust upon Western physicists. I don't believe the issue has moved much, however, from physics into any of the other sciences.

Also, I see a significant difference between the post-modernist view you describe, along with the scientific view that the self is a construct, when compared to the Buddhist view that there is no self and that the self is an illusion.

I agree that there is a significant difference between Buddhism and post-modernism, but I think that their critique of philosophical thinking is very similar.

Post-modernism does not go beyond the critique and that, I think, is where the major difference lies. Buddhism does not deny a practical, everyday working self along the lines of modern psychology. It denies our tendency to reify this pracitical self into something more than the sum of its parts. That is where the illusion comes in. I don't think this is very different from the post-modern view although I agree that it isn't identical.

Still IMO the major difference is that post-modernism asserts an essentially nihilist world-view whereas Buddhism claimed that existence is meaningful it we properly understand it, but life cannot be meaningful to an abstract, isolated, and autonomous self.

Starboy

September 16, 2003, 10:53 PM

Magic Primate

September 17, 2003, 12:37 AM

Originally posted by boneyard bill

I think it is true that science has tended to presuppose the Cartesian self and insofar as it is a presupposition, rather than assumption, it is a point that Western science has tended to ignore. However, in the field of quantum mechanics this issue has more or less been thrust upon Western physicists. I don't believe the issue has moved much, however, from physics into any of the other sciences.

I'm with Starboy on this one. The self is simply never part of the scientific description, because what science presupposes (not unjustifiably for practical purposes) is the absolute existence of the world independently of the human mind. The only exception, in fact, is that particular version of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, which you refer to. This version, although stilly heavily refered to by other fields and by New Age books of various sorts (presumably because it was the original interpretation and because its like so wierd and like mystical dude) is no longer taken very seriously because it leads to so many paradoxes (eg Schrodinger's Cat) yet it doesn't predict the behaviour of photons etc any better than the other interpretations (which are all wierd in one way or another, but don't suggest that wave functions are collapsed by human minds).

Originally posted by boneyard bill

Post-modernism does not go beyond the critique and that, I think, is where the major difference lies. Buddhism does not deny a practical, everyday working self along the lines of modern psychology. It denies our tendency to reify this pracitical self into something more than the sum of its parts. That is where the illusion comes in. I don't think this is very different from the post-modern view although I agree that it isn't identical.

No, its not very different, but different it is. My take is that the self exists as a sum of parts and a construct and that we have an illusion *about* the self, the illusion that the self is fixed, and separate.

I recently took some time during my zazen practice to contemplate something and found what appeared to be 'self', which is almost blasphemous to Zen it would seem. I'm still exploring this one.

Originally posted by boneyard bill

Still IMO the major difference is that post-modernism asserts an essentially nihilist world-view whereas Buddhism claimed that existence is meaningful it we properly understand it, but life cannot be meaningful to an abstract, isolated, and autonomous self.

I don't know all that much about Post-Modernism, but certainly Buddhism is not Nihilistic (even if it sometimes seems that way - especially Zen). Something positive is being indicated, something which cannot be grasped with concepts.

Jutsuka

September 17, 2003, 02:05 AM

Originally posted by Keith Russell
Tribal, isn't Zen about the 'Oneness' of all things, which I view as a direct contradiction of the foundation of reason, 'A is A', which is concerned with the individual identity of each thing.

Non-rational, anti-rational...irrational: mystical.

No?

K

I felt I had to make a calm and rational explanation of the 'Oneness' concept found in Zen and also all other schools of thought within Buddhism.

'Oneness' in Buddhism is usually not meant to mean that all things are one and the same but rather that nothing exists separately or independently. The 'Oneness', 'Impermanence' and 'Emptiness' concepts are attempts to explain that everything only exists due to causes and conditions and do not have a real and unchangeable identity of itself. Everything that exists does so as a result of it's relationship with everything else.

Magic Primate

September 17, 2003, 02:22 AM

Originally posted by Jutsuka

'Oneness' in Buddhism is usually not meant to mean that all things are one and the same but rather that nothing exists separately or independently. The 'Oneness', 'Impermanence' and 'Emptiness' concepts are attempts to explain that everything only exists due to causes and conditions and do not have a real and unchangeable identity of itself. Everything that exists does so as a result of it's relationship with everything else.

Nicely put.

Jutsuka

September 17, 2003, 02:57 AM

Why, thank you. :)

Anonymous Bosch

September 17, 2003, 03:17 AM

so everything is a construct?

Jutsuka

September 17, 2003, 03:25 AM

It depends on how you define "construct"...

boneyard bill

September 17, 2003, 04:23 AM

Starboy writes:

I disagree. The very concept of objective reality is to posit something outside the "self" or "mind".

Perhaps. But that has nothing to do with the Buddhist concept of Anatta or the post-modernists understanding of the deconstructed self. Before you can consider an "objective" reality, you have to have an understanding of the subject that is observing that reality. We only know an objective reality by observation and the existence of that objective reality is inferred. But of those observations, what is due to the nature of the external reality itself and what is due to the nature of the observer? For instance, is the color red a quality of a red object or is it a characteristic of the mind that observes the red object?

Your answer to that question will depend on your understanding of the "self' that is doing the observing.

boneyard bill

September 17, 2003, 04:43 AM

Magic Primate writes:

I'm with Starboy on this one. The self is simply never part of the scientific description, because what science presupposes (not unjustifiably for practical purposes) is the absolute existence of the world independently of the human mind.

Yes, but if I understand Buddhism correctly, this is precisely what Buddhism denies. Of course, they don't claim that the external world is dependent on the individual human mind but that mind itself is fundamental. Those parts of the individual mind that are associated with "self" play no part in the external world. But Citta (mind) is the one thing that survives to attain nirvana.

This is why I have referred to Buddhism as an epistemology. If they are right, then our science is on the wrong track. It is unaware of its own limitations. But that is basically the only thing wrong with the scientific practice. The problem is that scientists and pseudo-scientists want to play philosopher and claim that our science has proven things that it simply hasn't proven. In particular, of course, it hasn't proven a materialist metaphysic nor has it proven metaphysical naturalism. And those who claim that metaphysical naturalism is foundational to science are, in effect, claiming therefore that science is unable to make any independent truth claims at all.

boneyard bill

September 17, 2003, 04:51 AM

Posted by Magic Primate:

I recently took some time during my zazen practice to contemplate something and found what appeared to be 'self', which is almost blasphemous to Zen it would seem. I'm still exploring this one.

I'm not a practicing Buddhist so I won't try to help you with that one.

I don't know all that much about Post-Modernism, but certainly Buddhism is not Nihilistic (even if it sometimes seems that way - especially Zen). Something positive is being indicated, something which cannot be grasped with concepts.

That's correct. Buddhism is not nihilistic. Buddha claimed that his system was the Middle Way between the "eternalists" who claimed that the self survived death, and the "annihilationists" who claimed that everything ended with death. But it certainly is hard to imagine any alternative between these two. It isn't something that can be conceptualized.

boneyard bill

September 17, 2003, 04:57 AM

Posted by Magic Primate:

Nicely put

I completely agree. It reminds me of a riddle. But certainly not a zen riddle.

What did the Buddhist say to the hot dog vendor?

Answer:

Make me one with everything.

Magic Primate

September 17, 2003, 05:01 AM

I think the concept of rebirth is supposed to capture it. The (not necessarily widely accepted) way that I see it is that since the separate and unchanging self is an illusion anyway, then I'm dying and being reborn in each moment and there is no substantial self to die. Its all just part of the continuous process of change. If you stop identifying with the small self and identify with reality as a whole then there is no death.

Thomas Ash

September 17, 2003, 05:27 AM

Originally posted by reprise
Having just spent several frustrating weeks engaged in discussions about what atheists believe and why atheism is not a belief system (::sigh::), I'm wondering if this discussion is predicated on assumptions about Buddhism which are unjustified.

As it happens, I've just been reading some recent statements by the Dalai Lama about Buddhism and the purpose of meditation in the life of a Buddhist. My interpretation of the DL's statements is that the existence or non-existence of "god" is pretty much irrelevant in Buddhism. I have to go do the mum right now, but I'd really love to discuss tomorrow the implications of some of the DL's recent statements (not the least of which is that if science cannot verify the benefits of meditation then the whole philosophy of Buddhism with have to be re-examined). I wish I had a spare $5000 to attend the conference at which the DL and scientists are going to be examining these issues in depth later this year.

I didn't know that - what a sensible guy, as reicarnated religious leaders go ;) ! My question is, are some more tradition-minded upset with the Llama for quotes like this? My dad has visited Buddhists parts of the world as a journalist, and said that it coexits there with a huge amounht of superstition (beliefs in thousands of minor dog gods, self-proclaimed human gods, etc. ) This doesn't seem to be the Llama's perspective (he's aid it's an "atheistic religion", etc.) so is there any conflict. If anyone knows, can they tell me?

Best wishes,

Thomas Ash

__________
Checkout my website for all :cool: infidels - Atheist Ground (http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/)

Thomas Ash

September 17, 2003, 05:43 AM

Originally posted by tribalbeeyatch
No, in my opinion. I just don't see anything inherently non-rational, anti-rational, irrational or mystical in the concept of 'oneness'. Does ecology contradict the law of identity in its recognition of the 'oneness' of a biological system? Does behavioral neuroscience debase the individual identities of neurons by studying the sum of their activities? Do single-cell recordings emphasize the 'oneness' of neurons to the detriment of the individual identities of ion channels? Are physicists threatening our very identities in suggesting that we might be made of the very same elementary particles as every other thing?

Ooooh, it is too irrational! :mad: ;)

None of those aspects of science you auoted which simply recongnize the (obvious, not exactly earth-shattering) fact that things tend to be interrelated to some extent. But to draw the sort of mystical (sorry it is) conclusions from this that Buddhism does, that all truly is 'One' is totally unjustified. Try reading what Betrand Russel has to say about Hegel's very similar idea to see how ludicrous it is. My foot is my foot. My shoe is my shoe. They may be interrelated, but in no meaningful sense are they 'One'. They are two.

Best wishes,

Thomas Ash

Thomas Ash

September 17, 2003, 06:09 AM

Originally posted by Jutsuka
I felt I had to make a calm and rational explanation of the 'Oneness' concept found in Zen and also all other schools of thought within Buddhism.

'Oneness' in Buddhism is usually not meant to mean that all things are one and the same but rather that nothing exists separately or independently. The 'Oneness', 'Impermanence' and 'Emptiness' concepts are attempts to explain that everything only exists due to causes and conditions and do not have a real and unchangeable identity of itself. Everything that exists does so as a result of it's relationship with everything else.

Oh, OK. If that's the concept of 'Oneness' in Buddhism the rant in my previous post was a little unjustified :o . But that's just, well.. obvious. I mean, who denies that things are interrelated. It doesn't seem a concept in need of a glorified, capital O word, let alone a 'religion' like Buddhism.

best, Thomas

Jutsuka

September 17, 2003, 07:11 AM

Tell that to the christians... ;)

Magic Primate

September 17, 2003, 07:54 AM

Originally posted by Thomas Ash
Oh, OK. If that's the concept of 'Oneness' in Buddhism the rant in my previous post was a little unjustified :o . But that's just, well.. obvious. I mean, who denies that things are interrelated. It doesn't seem a concept in need of a glorified, capital O word, let alone a 'religion' like Buddhism.

It's not necessarily that obvious - you are busy describing the absolute separateness of foot and shoe in your other thread. Also, knowing something on an intellectual level is different from experiencing it on an intuitive level.

Thomas Ash

September 17, 2003, 08:06 AM

Originally posted by Magic Primate
It's not necessarily that obvious - you are busy describing the absolute separateness of foot and shoe in your other thread. Also, knowing something on an intellectual level is different from experiencing it on an intuitive level.

I wasn't defending the 'absolute' (whatever that means :confused: ) separateness of my shoe and my foot - only the fact that they are, in a genuine, meaningful sense, separate. Like I said, my shoe is my shoe. My foot is my foot. A is A. This seems to me distinct from the more mystical idea of Oneness, which can be found in some Buddhism. But Jutsuka's position was, like I said, common sense and obvious

Also, while there's some truth in your last sentence, it's on a slippery slope to mysticism.

Best wishes, Thomas

Thomas Ash

September 17, 2003, 08:11 AM

Originally posted by Jutsuka
Tell that to the christians... ;)

Tell what? That things are interrelated? Trust me, I sometimes overestimate them, but I really think they know that :) . Unless I misunderstood what you meant.

Magic Primate

September 17, 2003, 08:13 AM

Originally posted by Thomas Ash

None of those aspects of science you auoted which simply recongnize the (obvious, not exactly earth-shattering) fact that things tend to be interrelated to some extent. But to draw the sort of mystical (sorry it is) conclusions from this that Buddhism does, that all truly is 'One' is totally unjustified.

What do you mean 'mystical'?

Originally posted by Thomas Ash

Try reading what Betrand Russel has to say about Hegel's very similar idea to see how ludicrous it is. My foot is my foot. My shoe is my shoe. They may be interrelated, but in no meaningful sense are they 'One'. They are two.

You may be confusing the words/concepts with the things-in-themselves. Just as there is no colour in the world (its something our brains project onto it) there are no feet or shoes either. I mean this in the sense that these are just concepts projected onto what is there, which is a matrix of energy in the form of matter. 'Foot' and 'shoe' are both part of the same matrix and can be seen as temporary expressions of the same matrix (ie expressions of the laws of physics).

Magic Primate

September 17, 2003, 08:19 AM

Originally posted by Thomas Ash
I wasn't defending the 'absolute' (whatever that means :confused: ) separateness of my shoe and my foot - only the fact that they are, in a genuine, meaningful sense, separate. Like I said, my shoe is my shoe. My foot is my foot. A is A. This seems to me distinct from the more mystical idea of Oneness, which can be found in some Buddhism. But Jutsuka's position was, like I said, common sense and obvious

There is a Zen saying which I can't recall word for word, but the jist is that the many are one, but also the many are just the many. Saying 'A is A' is irrelevant, because 'A' is an abstract and thus artificially distinct character, while we are discussing the physical world where nothing is fully separable from anything else.

Originally posted by Thomas Ash

Also, while there's some truth in your last sentence, it's on a slippery slope to mysticism.

Oh my God! Save me before I am beyond hope! ;)

Thomas Ash

September 17, 2003, 10:08 AM

Originally posted by Magic Primate
What do you mean 'mystical'?

There's quite a good defintion in Russell's 'Mysticism and Logic' (sorry if I'm going on about him, but I'm just reading that book and he does say things that are very apropos, pardon my (use of) French.) Wrt 'Oneness', I'd say it's a somewhat mystical concept because it's not based on something recognised from experience, but pretty much theopposite of what we recognize in experience. Also, it seems to be imbued with a lot of 'mystical' significance, at least as some are describing it, with Capital Letters, Zen Sayings And So On.

You may be confusing the words/concepts with the things-in-themselves. Just as there is no colour in the world (its something our brains project onto it) there are no feet or shoes either. I mean this in the sense that these are just concepts projected onto what is there, which is a matrix of energy in the form of matter. 'Foot' and 'shoe' are both part of the same matrix and can be seen as temporary expressions of the same matrix (ie expressions of the laws of physics).

I see and partly take your point. But there are feet and shoes in a way there aren't colours. Imagine a perspective divorced from any human or animal mind. Colour wouldn't exist there, but the part of matter we single out as a shoe would. No?

best, thomas

Thomas Ash

September 17, 2003, 10:11 AM

Originally posted by Magic Primate
There is a Zen saying which I can't recall word for word, but the jist is that the many are one, but also the many are just the many. Saying 'A is A' is irrelevant, because 'A' is an abstract and thus artificially distinct character, while we are discussing the physical world where nothing is fully separable from anything else.

Well, I'm glad to hear that "the many are just the many", but is a Zen saying really needed to tell us that? :p I actually agree that A is A is a bit of distraction from concrete things, and can be miscontrued to mean something which ain't so (eg. the word 'foot' is equivalent to the actual foot, etc.)

Oh my God! Save me before I am beyond hope! ;)

I'm trying! I'm trying! But I may have to mark you up as 'unsaved', beyond hope for the 'Gawdess of Reason' ;) .

Gawdess bless,

Thomas Ash

Starboy

September 17, 2003, 10:22 AM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
Starboy writes:

Perhaps. But that has nothing to do with the Buddhist concept of Anatta or the post-modernists understanding of the deconstructed self. Before you can consider an "objective" reality, you have to have an understanding of the subject that is observing that reality. We only know an objective reality by observation and the existence of that objective reality is inferred. But of those observations, what is due to the nature of the external reality itself and what is due to the nature of the observer? For instance, is the color red a quality of a red object or is it a characteristic of the mind that observes the red object?

Your answer to that question will depend on your understanding of the "self' that is doing the observing.

Bill, I make no claim to know very much about Buddhism so my comment will be restricted to a subject I do claim to know something about, namely science. Your observations about self are not entirely correct unless you wish to attribute to nature a consciousness. A scientific investigation is very capable of detecting phenomena through several layers of cause and effect, each layer having its own interaction with an event before it, yet scientists routinely make statements about the first primary event all the time, even, as in the case of the big bang where it preceded the existence of any kind of a mind that we are aware of for over 13 billion years. Now if you are trying to say that what humans in particular observe is affected but what they understand of what they observe then I couldn't agree more. But it only says something about the nature of human minds and says nothing about what is being observed. Your comments appear to me to have a very "mind" centric bias to them.

Starboy

Magic Primate

September 17, 2003, 11:00 AM

Originally posted by Thomas Ash
There's quite a good defintion in Russell's 'Mysticism and Logic' (sorry if I'm going on about him, but I'm just reading that book and he does say things that are very apropos, pardon my (use of) French.) Wrt 'Oneness', I'd say it's a somewhat mystical concept because it's not based on something recognised from experience, but pretty much theopposite of what we recognize in experience.

Which experience? It is something that is often 'observed' during zazen or contemplation. Zen puts much more emphasis on direct experience than on doctrine, the opinions of others or philosophising.
The idea that something is mystical because it is contrary to common sense seems rather a bizarre concept of 'mystical'. Is everything mystical which contradicts common appearances then? Relativity theory? Quantum physics? etc

Originally posted by Thomas Ash

Also, it seems to be imbued with a lot of 'mystical' significance, at least as some are describing it, with Capital Letters, Zen Sayings And So On.

Giving it a capital is misguided. There is nothing truly sacred in Zen. What Zen sayings give this 'mystical significance' (whatever that is). Zen is very down to earth and really has no metaphysics at all.

Originally posted by Thomas Ash

I see and partly take your point. But there are feet and shoes in a way there aren't colours. Imagine a perspective divorced from any human or animal mind. Colour wouldn't exist there, but the part of matter we single out as a shoe would. No?

No one is denying that the matter that makes up feet and shoes exists, but the division into discreet objects and classes of objects is an abstraction that occurs in the mind/brain. You have answered your own point when you use the phrase 'we single out as a shoe'. The recognition and categorisation into foot, shoe or whatever is an active cognitive process of the brain. In reality there are only molecules, which are ultimately arrays of energy engaged in vastly complex interactions with their environments.

Magic Primate

September 17, 2003, 11:11 AM

Originally posted by Thomas Ash
Well, I'm glad to hear that "the many are just the many", but is a Zen saying really needed to tell us that? :p I actually agree that A is A is a bit of distraction from concrete things, and can be miscontrued to mean something which ain't so (eg. the word 'foot' is equivalent to the actual foot, etc.)

Because the many are also one.

'A is A' is a complete abstraction. The use of these crisply defined concepts and symbols is clearly fundamental to rational philosphy, yet it is an artifice, which is all too often confused with reality. The only place where Platonic ideals exist is in our minds.

Originally posted by Thomas Ash
'm trying! I'm trying! But I may have to mark you up as 'unsaved', beyond hope for the 'Gawdess of Reason' ;) .

Reason and language is just a set of tools and should be seen as such. If someone is pointing at the moon, don't look at the finger. Reason and language have limitations, which, in the west have been investigated by the likes of Wittgenstein and Godel.

I have no intention of abandoning reason or critical thinking and I have not had to in my (modest) studies of Buddhism so far. Its just important to recognise its limits and not to confuse the concept with the thing itself.

boneyard bill

September 18, 2003, 03:09 AM

Starboy writes:

. A scientific investigation is very capable of detecting phenomena through several layers of cause and effect, each layer having its own interaction with an event before it, yet scientists routinely make statements about the first primary event all the time, even, as in the case of the big bang

Yes. But I think you still miss the point. Scientists make such statements but scientists also presuppose certain characteristics about the observer. If you discover that the observer is actually different from what we have assumed, then you have to alter your view of the observations as well.

This is why a scientific claim cannot be said to refute a Buddhist claim. Since the nature of the observer is what is at issue, nothing that follows from that assumed nature can prove the nature that is assumed to start with.

boneyard bill

September 18, 2003, 03:27 AM

Thomas Ash writes:

Well, I'm glad to hear that "the many are just the many", but is a Zen saying really needed to tell us that?

I have to take issue with Jutsuka's claim regarding the Buddhist notion of "Oneness." It is true that everything is inter-related, but that point doesn't go far enough. I think it has to do with the distinction between reductionism and holism.

The body is made of parts and there are many separate and distinct processes that the body undertakes in a living person I.e. respiration, metabolism, reproduction, etc. It takes all of these parts and all of these processes for the body to be alive. A living being is a holistic unit. A human being is "one." If you remove the parts or impair the processes, the life of that individual is threatened. And certainly the body parts of a corpse are significantly different from the body parts of a living person though their description is the same.

In a holistic analysis, the parts take on their character from their relationship to the whole. Identical parts are not the same if they exist in different entities. The foot of a human being performs a function, but the foot of a corpse is functionless.

I believe that Buddhism is claiming that the universe is a whole and that human beings take their character from their relationship to their environment.

"There is no consciousness without content," is a favorite Buddhist saying. What I am experiencing at the moment is dependent upon my immediate environment. If I am confronted by a lion at the same time that you are listening to a lullabye, we are very different people even though, in another context, we may both be Chinese peasants or both be Harvard Phd's.

Starboy

September 18, 2003, 08:11 AM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
Starboy writes:

Yes. But I think you still miss the point. Scientists make such statements but scientists also presuppose certain characteristics about the observer. If you discover that the observer is actually different from what we have assumed, then you have to alter your view of the observations as well.

This is why a scientific claim cannot be said to refute a Buddhist claim. Since the nature of the observer is what is at issue, nothing that follows from that assumed nature can prove the nature that is assumed to start with.

That may be the Buddhist take on observers but in general it is not the scientific take. It is expected the different observers should come up with mostly the same results.

Starboy

theophilus

September 18, 2003, 06:08 PM

Originally posted by Anonymous Bosch
just curious about this old issue. are buddhists really theists if they don't really have creator gods?

also and in addition ;)

if someone believes that the universe (can't think of a better word- earth maybe?) seems to have a set of swings and roundabouts where eventually things even out and just desserts get served... could they not be just making generalisations based on past experience/observations? why is it karma or luck?

hmmm?

:confused:

I think you've missed the point. Shouldn't the question, in context, be "Are Buddhists real?"

theophilus

September 18, 2003, 06:15 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
Starboy writes:

Yes. But I think you still miss the point. Scientists make such statements but scientists also presuppose certain characteristics about the observer. If you discover that the observer is actually different from what we have assumed, then you have to alter your view of the observations as well.

This is why a scientific claim cannot be said to refute a Buddhist claim.

I'm confused. Is a Buddhist claim a "real, existing thing?" If it is, then there are at least two "things" and, thereby, buddhism is destroyed. If it is not, then what is it - the illusion of a claim?

theophilus

September 18, 2003, 06:18 PM

Originally posted by Magic Primate
Reason and language have limitations,

Is this statement an exception?

Can you use reason and language to describe/explain the limitations?

theophilus

September 18, 2003, 06:25 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Thomas Ash
Well, I'm glad to hear that "the many are just the many", but is a Zen saying really needed to tell us that? :p I actually agree that A is A is a bit of distraction from concrete things, and can be miscontrued to mean something which ain't so (eg. the word 'foot' is equivalent to the actual foot, etc.)

Is that correct? A > A (I think > is correct) does not mean that A and a representation of A are the same. A > A would be Socrates is Socrates. Certainly the idea of a thing is not the same as the thing itself.

Which brings me back to the question I've been asking elsewhere. If one asserts monism (buddhism?), can one truly speak or think of the ONE? After all, and idea is surely a "thing" isn't it? If an idea is not the same as the thing itself, then there are without question two things. Is that not correct?

Therefore, to speak of or have a thought about the thing is to deny monism. In fact, one could not even believe in monism without destroying it.

theophilus

September 18, 2003, 06:36 PM

Originally posted by Magic Primate
I think the concept of rebirth is supposed to capture it. The (not necessarily widely accepted) way that I see it is that since the separate and unchanging self is an illusion anyway, then I'm dying and being reborn in each moment and there is no substantial self to die. Its all just part of the continuous process of change. If you stop identifying with the small self and identify with reality as a whole then there is no death.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the/a central tenet of buddhism that all separateness, including the idea of physical "reality" is an illusion? That's what you seem to be saying here, i.e, "the separate and unchanging self is an illusion."

If that is so, then this discussion is not actually happening, is it? This, along with all experience is an illusion which is caused by ??? (not sin, surely). It seems one would have to ask, if all is one, then where did the idea of separateness come from. After all, an idea is a separate, existing (noumenally) thing, isn't it? Then, of course, you have the idea of "having an idea." That would seem to make three things. You can see where this leads, can't you.

theophilus

September 18, 2003, 07:23 PM

Originally posted by Jutsuka
Tell that to the christians... ;)

I can't seem to identify what "that" is/was.

Since I'm a Christian, I'd like to be told.

Will I Am

September 19, 2003, 04:22 AM

Apologies if this wasn't clear - what I'm saying is that the self (esp in regard to the subjective viewpoint and the question/nature of existence of consciousness) is largely ignored *in western science*.

Then what in the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics, is �collapsing the wave function�, if not a �consciousness� self?

I realize that this �I see, therefore it is� interpretation is not universal, but it is a valid view. And held by serious people. Seems like a scientific view of �self� is similarly held.

Magic Primate

September 19, 2003, 05:44 AM

Originally posted by theophilus
Is this statement an exception?

Can you use reason and language to describe/explain the limitations?

Only in a limited way.

Magic Primate

September 19, 2003, 05:53 AM

Originally posted by theophilus
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the/a central tenet of buddhism that all separateness, including the idea of physical "reality" is an illusion? That's what you seem to be saying here, i.e, "the separate and unchanging self is an illusion."

If that is so, then this discussion is not actually happening, is it?

Hang on, how did you reach that conclusion? Rather, Buddhism would say that 'this' is not necessary what you think it is.

Originally posted by theophilus

This, along with all experience is an illusion which is caused by ??? (not sin, surely).

Neither of the above.

Originally posted by theophilus

It seems one would have to ask, if all is one, then where did the idea of separateness come from.

I'm not an expert on Buddhism, so I can't tell you what Buddha said about this. Personally, I think that the brain/mind creates a sense of separateness because it is useful to it as an integrated, coherent system. There are only so many 'computations' that any system can perform in a given time so its more efficient if the brain treats itself as absolutely unified and distinct, rather that getting into all sorts of complex feedback loops.

Originally posted by theophilus

After all, an idea is a separate, existing (noumenally) thing, isn't it? Then, of course, you have the idea of "having an idea." That would seem to make three things. You can see where this leads, can't you.

No, an idea is not separate - that's the illusion - that's the whole point.

Thomas Ash

September 20, 2003, 01:36 PM

Originally posted by Magic Primate
Which experience? It is something that is often 'observed' during zazen or contemplation. Zen puts much more emphasis on direct experience than on doctrine, the opinions of others or philosophising.

I find it hard to imagine the concept of Oneness, however you precisely phrase it, could be 'experienced', in meditation or just normal life. We recognise shoes, matter, time, etc.

The idea that something is mystical because it is contrary to common sense seems rather a bizarre concept of 'mystical'. Is everything mystical which contradicts common appearances then? Relativity theory? Quantum physics? etc

I didn't say 'common sense', I said what we recognise in experience. Quantum physics, though clearly divorced from everyday experience, is nonetheless based on a close attention to experiments, etc. (which all fall under 'experience') Oneness, at least as presented by some on this thread, seems like an abstract conept which has pretty much popped out of nowhere.

No one is denying that the matter that makes up feet and shoes exists, but the division into discreet objects and classes of objects is an abstraction that occurs in the mind/brain. You have answered your own point when you use the phrase 'we single out as a shoe'. The recognition and categorisation into foot, shoe or whatever is an active cognitive process of the brain. In reality there are only molecules, which are ultimately arrays of energy engaged in vastly complex interactions with their environments.

I accept that totally.

Best wishes,

Thomas Ash

Thomas Ash

September 20, 2003, 01:53 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
I have to take issue with Jutsuka's claim regarding the Buddhist notion of "Oneness." It is true that everything is inter-related, but that point doesn't go far enough. I think it has to do with the distinction between reductionism and holism.

The body is made of parts and there are many separate and distinct processes that the body undertakes in a living person I.e. respiration, metabolism, reproduction, etc. It takes all of these parts and all of these processes for the body to be alive. A living being is a holistic unit. A human being is "one." If you remove the parts or impair the processes, the life of that individual is threatened. And certainly the body parts of a corpse are significantly different from the body parts of a living person though their description is the same.

In a holistic analysis, the parts take on their character from their relationship to the whole. Identical parts are not the same if they exist in different entities. The foot of a human being performs a function, but the foot of a corpse is functionless.

I believe that Buddhism is claiming that the universe is a whole and that human beings take their character from their relationship to their environment.

"There is no consciousness without content," is a favorite Buddhist saying. What I am experiencing at the moment is dependent upon my immediate environment. If I am confronted by a lion at the same time that you are listening to a lullabye, we are very different people even though, in another context, we may both be Chinese peasants or both be Harvard Phd's.

Bill, a lot of that sounds just like common sense. However, the mysticism in it would arise from reading into it some too-great universal significance which isn't really there. And if you don't that, why can't you call yourself a person who is influenced by Buddhist teachings, like I'm someone influenced by Hume, but not a Humian ;) ? Of course, this is nitpicking, and you have my permission to call yourself whatever you want...

Best wishes, Thomas Ash

Thomas Ash

September 20, 2003, 02:02 PM

Originally posted by theophilus
Originally posted by Thomas Ash
Well, I'm glad to hear that "the many are just the many", but is a Zen saying really needed to tell us that? :p I actually agree that A is A is a bit of distraction from concrete things, and can be miscontrued to mean something which ain't so (eg. the word 'foot' is equivalent to the actual foot, etc.)

Is that correct? A > A (I think > is correct) does not mean that A and a representation of A are the same. A > A would be Socrates is Socrates. Certainly the idea of a thing is not the same as the thing itself.

Which brings me back to the question I've been asking elsewhere. If one asserts monism (buddhism?), can one truly speak or think of the ONE? After all, and idea is surely a "thing" isn't it? If an idea is not the same as the thing itself, then there are without question two things. Is that not correct?

Therefore, to speak of or have a thought about the thing is to deny monism. In fact, one could not even believe in monism without destroying it.

I don't know where you got A > (is greater than) A from. I think you mean A = A. My point was that the abstraction of this isn't necessarily very helpful, and can be unhelpful.

I guess the monist defence would be that the 'idea' only appears to be separate, but is actually part of the single whole. No comment on this, is, I think, necessary, but here goes: as I said above, it's completely unjustified on the evidence, and back-to-front in this respect.

Magic Primate

September 21, 2003, 03:16 PM

Originally posted by Thomas Ash
I find it hard to imagine the concept of Oneness, however you precisely phrase it, could be 'experienced', in meditation or just normal life. We recognise shoes, matter, time, etc.

OK, you find it hard to imagine. What you are describing is the ordinary way of seeing things. The same things can be seen in a different way. Its not really worth much time philosophising about - its something you have to try if you are inclined.

Originally posted by Thomas Ash

I didn't say 'common sense', I said what we recognise in experience. Quantum physics, though clearly divorced from everyday experience, is nonetheless based on a close attention to experiments, etc. (which all fall under 'experience') Oneness, at least as presented by some on this thread, seems like an abstract conept which has pretty much popped out of nowhere.

Its more like a loss than a gain. The loss of the artificial/ conceptual division between self and other and an intuitive sense of the interdependence of things.

boneyard bill

September 23, 2003, 04:28 PM

Starboy writes:

That may be the Buddhist take on observers but in general it is not the scientific take. It is expected the different observers should come up with mostly the same results.

But my point all along has been that science cannot be used to refute Buddhism because science presupposes a certain characteristics of the observing self that Buddhism would (IMHO) dispute. I don't think Buddhism expects different results from different observers, however when it comes to describing "self-nature" there is no common vocabulary between the adept practitioner and the ordinary person so communicating the results presents difficulties.

This is particularly true of a holistic understanding of reality. That is why most of our holistic explanations are mythological or quasi-mythological.

Buddhism is unusual in having been a philosophy before it became a religion. Most philosophies have found religious expression by being grafted on to an existing religion which already had a holisitic outlook due to its mythological elements.

boneyard bill

September 23, 2003, 04:41 PM

Theophilous asks:

I'm confused. Is a Buddhist claim a "real, existing thing?" If it is, then there are at least two "things" and, thereby, buddhism is destroyed. If it is not, then what is it - the illusion of a claim?

The first thing I suggest is that you read my post about holism a little more carefully. (And let me add that this is my take on Buddhism. I'm no expert on the subject. No doubt some Buddhists would take issue with what I have to say, but I think there are many that would also agree at least in general).

Buddhism claims that there aren't any things. If anything could be understood to be a "thing" it is nirvana. The world we live in is made up entirely of processes. Everything is changing every moment. Nothing is static and unchanging. This is what Buddhism means by "self." There is "no self" (anatta) in the human condition and there is "no self" in any of our observations of the physical world either. In other words, there are no things. The two Buddhist doctrines anatta (no self) and anicca (impermance) really express the same point.

Starboy

September 23, 2003, 04:49 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
I don't think Buddhism expects different results from different observers, however when it comes to describing "self-nature" there is no common vocabulary between the adept practitioner and the ordinary person so communicating the results presents difficulties.

At this time you may be right, but brain research is growing at an ever increasing rate. Perhaps sometime in the not too distant future an objective observer could examine the experience of a Buddhist and compare it with other Buddhists and non-Buddhists. Who is to say that what they discover may or may not be all that special.

Starboy

boneyard bill

September 23, 2003, 04:53 PM

Thomas Ash writes:

Bill, a lot of that sounds just like common sense. However, the mysticism in it would arise from reading into it some too-great universal significance which isn't really there. And if you don't that, why can't you call yourself a person who is influenced by Buddhist teachings, like I'm someone influenced by Hume, but not a Humian ? Of course, this is nitpicking, and you have my permission to call yourself whatever you want...

Have I ever said I was a Buddhist? I don't believe so. I am just a person who has been influence by Buddhism like you are influence by Hume.

But why do you say it is just common sense? If it is common sense, why is it so thoroughly rejected by modern scientific thinking? Modern science is reductionistic through and through.

The problem, I think, is that modern science is what it is due to its methods and those methods are reductionistic and we don't know how to do science any other way. So the problem is that we let the method dictate our ontology and our metaphysics. Since our methods are reductionistic, reality itself must be reductionistic. This is ass-backwards. The problem is that science is the pursuit of facts not the pursuit of truth. But many people don't (or won't) recognize the difference.

My point has been that Buddhism uses a different method, the method of self observation. That method is not "scientific" but that doesn't mean that it isn't a valid epistemology.

boneyard bill

September 24, 2003, 12:16 AM

Starboy writes:

At this time you may be right, but brain research is growing at an ever increasing rate. Perhaps sometime in the not too distant future an objective observer could examine the experience of a Buddhist and compare it with other Buddhists and non-Buddhists. Who is to say that what they discover may or may not be all that special.

But modern Western brain research, like all of Western science, presupposes a self nature. The brain in question here is not the brain of an "object" of research. The brain (more accurately, the mind, since "brain" presupposes a materialist metaphysic to begin with) of the researcher is the one that is at issue.

What we assume about the nature of the observing self, determines what we conclude about the observation. Your conclusion that "brain research" can answer the question is a presupposition in itself. And it is a presupposition that reveals the why science cannot really claim to have a conclusive answer here. The scientific answer can only be correct if its assumptions about the self are correct, and it cannot prove its assumptions about the self by conducting research that presupposes those very same assumptions.

Thomas Ash

September 24, 2003, 04:20 AM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
Have I ever said I was a Buddhist? I don't believe so. I am just a person who has been influence by Buddhism like you are influence by Hume.

But why do you say it is just common sense? If it is common sense, why is it so thoroughly rejected by modern scientific thinking? Modern science is reductionistic through and through.

The problem, I think, is that modern science is what it is due to its methods and those methods are reductionistic and we don't know how to do science any other way. So the problem is that we let the method dictate our ontology and our metaphysics. Since our methods are reductionistic, reality itself must be reductionistic. This is ass-backwards. The problem is that science is the pursuit of facts not the pursuit of truth. But many people don't (or won't) recognize the difference.

My point has been that Buddhism uses a different method, the method of self observation. That method is not "scientific" but that doesn't mean that it isn't a valid epistemology.

Hi Bill,

I've looked through your 'common-sensical' post, and I couldn't for the life of me find anything incompatible with modern Western science. What you said doesn't even strike me as incompatible with reductionism, where that merely means trying to seek an explanation for things and break them down into their constituent parts where that works to help the explanation.

How does Western brain research, foot research, shoe research, etc. ;) presuppose the wrongness of Buddhism and not give its claims a fair shot?

What I do agree is that your claims, and many of my claims, are not part of science but philosophy. Philosophy has a scope which deals with some things which are not in science, or, indeed, simply assumed by it. I know Starboy will take issue with this, now I've written it...

Best wishes,

Thomas Ash

__________
Check out my website for all :cool: infidels, Atheist Ground (http://www.bigissueground.com/atheistground/) - and my broader website on politics, philosophy, science and history - Big Issue Ground (http://www.bigissueground.com/)!

Starboy

September 24, 2003, 10:49 AM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
But modern Western brain research, like all of Western science, presupposes a self nature. The brain in question here is not the brain of an "object" of research. The brain (more accurately, the mind, since "brain" presupposes a materialist metaphysic to begin with) of the researcher is the one that is at issue.

What we assume about the nature of the observing self, determines what we conclude about the observation. Your conclusion that "brain research" can answer the question is a presupposition in itself. And it is a presupposition that reveals the why science cannot really claim to have a conclusive answer here. The scientific answer can only be correct if its assumptions about the self are correct, and it cannot prove its assumptions about the self by conducting research that presupposes those very same assumptions.

Boneyard, you lost me, so what that science has presuppositions. What does this have to do with Buddhism? As far as I know, Buddha made no reality claims that conflict with the reality claims of current science. Please make your point clear. I am not sure that you understand the enterprise of science. Science may indeed be subject to unwarranted presumptions and have a poor understanding of the mind of both the observer and the observed at this time, but a scientist can change how you feel and think at the touch of a button and you do not have to believe or practice anything. They can even set it up to operate automatically. This is more then Buddha could ever do let alone conceive of.

Starboy

boneyard bill

September 24, 2003, 02:38 PM

Thomas Ash writes:

I've looked through your 'common-sensical' post, and I couldn't for the life of me find anything incompatible with modern Western science. What you said doesn't even strike me as incompatible with reductionism,

I don't think there is anything incompatible with modern science and it isn't compatible with reductionism but it isn't reductionistic either. If it were incompatible, we would have valid reasons for challenging it on epistemological lines. I suggest that Buddhism is an additional epistemological approach but not one that cannot be negated by reason or experience.

But being incompatible and being supported are two different things. Since Buddhism makes claims that cannot be supported by scientific methods, it tends to be rejected by many people of that mind-set. (I know, there are a few Buddhist scientists out there. There are even more Christian scientists. But they are still the exception).

I don't know of any holistic sciences except gestalt psychology. And it makes a certain amount of sense that psychology would be the area that deals with it since only the subject can grasp the whole as a whole. Once you start to examine it, you have to 'reduce' it.

I suppose my real complaint is not with science per se but with science education. Reductionism is presented as the only valid method. That is philosophy, not science. But critics don't get a chance to critique these points. Nor are the limitations of the scientific method ever made clear. These aren't much discussed until you get to philosophy of science which may well be a graduate level course and even then is taken by mostly philosophy students not scientists or science educators.

boneyard bill

September 24, 2003, 03:10 PM

Starboy writes:

Boneyard, you lost me, so what that science has presuppositions. What does this have to do with Buddhism? As far as I know, Buddha made no reality claims that conflict with the reality claims of current science. Please make your point clear.

Buddha made very few reality claims and avoided questions of ontology and metaphysics which he claimed were not productive of attaining enlightenment.

His followers were not so reticent. Mahayana Buddhism pretty strongly supports and idealist ontology. Theravada Buddhism claims to follow the Buddha's original position, but I think that Mahayana is pretty much implied by the Theravada position as well.

Of course, philosophical idealism is not incompatible with modern science, but try getting that across to most of the people on these boards. They think anything proven by science proves materialism.

But let me get back to my original point. What I said was that science cannot refute Buddhism because the scientific presuppositions regarding the observer are different from the Buddhist ones. Therefore, any refutation must begin at the level of self-understanding. I don't mean this in some Freudian or Jungian sense. I mean, what is our nature as an observer? Are we passive observers who just let information come to us throuogh physical processes? Consider vision. We claim that our vision has to do only with the reception of photons reflected off the observed object. In the Middle Ages it was assumed that something went out from the eyes and apprehended the observed object. The individual self was not a passive receptor of information but an active participant.

Now consider the Michaelson=Morley experiment back in 1887. It discovered that the velocity of light was the same in all directions regardless of the motion of the observer. This completely contradicted the Newtonian world-view and paved the way for the theory of relativity.

But suppose the constancy of the speed of light is not a feature of the external world at all but a function of human vision? If that's the case, then we would expect the speed of light to be constant regardless of the motion of the observer and there would be no contradiction with Newtonian physics (or at least much less of a contradiction).

Now I'm not proposing this as a serious alternative to Einstein. Relativity has dealt successfully with other issues besides the speed of light.

My point is to illustrate how self-understanding is crucial because even our understanding of physics depends upon how we understand our own self-nature.

What this means is that you cannot get to a Buddhist understanding of the world through modern science, but neither can you use modern science to refute that Buddhist understanding.

Can the two somehow be brought together? I don't think that it's out of the question, but I doubt that the approach would be regarded as scientific. Understanding self-nature is, after all, largely a subjective enterprise. Modern Western psychology studies the self as an object. There's nothing wrong with this but it isn't a way out of the dilemma because the Buddhist approach is specifically to study the self as a subject. That leads to the enlightenment of one person only and then whatever is learned has to be communicated to others. But the two parties do not have a common vocabulary with which to discuss the experience so that communication is difficult and still only produces communication. It doesn't produce enlightenment itself.

Thomas Ash

September 27, 2003, 12:23 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
I suppose my real complaint is not with science per se but with science education. Reductionism is presented as the only valid method. That is philosophy, not science. But critics don't get a chance to critique these points. Nor are the limitations of the scientific method ever made clear. These aren't much discussed until you get to philosophy of science which may well be a graduate level course and even then is taken by mostly philosophy students not scientists or science educators.

What's wrong with reductionism? I see it as simply trying to understand the universe to the greatest extent possible and never stopping asking the 'why?' or 'how?' questions at some arbitrary point. And what would be your alternative?

Best wishes,

Thomas

Starboy

September 27, 2003, 01:18 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
Of course, philosophical idealism is not incompatible with modern science, but try getting that across to most of the people on these boards. They think anything proven by science proves materialism.

I guess that claim all depends on what you mean by philosophical idealism. The kind I am familiar takes a �mind� centric approach as opposed to a reality centric approach. It is very difficult for me to see how a scientist would get very far by presuming philosophical idealism. It would certainly be hard to be a cosmologist with that point of view.

Originally posted by boneyard bill
But let me get back to my original point. What I said was that science cannot refute Buddhism because the scientific presuppositions regarding the observer are different from the Buddhist ones. Therefore, any refutation must begin at the level of self-understanding. I don't mean this in some Freudian or Jungian sense. I mean, what is our nature as an observer? Are we passive observers who just let information come to us throuogh physical processes? Consider vision. We claim that our vision has to do only with the reception of photons reflected off the observed object. In the Middle Ages it was assumed that something went out from the eyes and apprehended the observed object. The individual self was not a passive receptor of information but an active participant.

Now consider the Michaelson=Morley experiment back in 1887. It discovered that the velocity of light was the same in all directions regardless of the motion of the observer. This completely contradicted the Newtonian world-view and paved the way for the theory of relativity.

But suppose the constancy of the speed of light is not a feature of the external world at all but a function of human vision? If that's the case, then we would expect the speed of light to be constant regardless of the motion of the observer and there would be no contradiction with Newtonian physics (or at least much less of a contradiction).

Now I'm not proposing this as a serious alternative to Einstein. Relativity has dealt successfully with other issues besides the speed of light.

Boneyard, your understanding of scientific presuppositions is at least 80 years old. Times have changed. QM has changed everything. There is no question that you cannot separate the observer from what is observed but there is nothing metaphysical about it. Thinking that you could separate them, now that was metaphysical. That old school thinking ignored the fact that our �minds� are a manifestation of reality and are embedded in reality. To presume that our �minds� are somehow free from interaction with everything else in all sorts of ways was to presume a view of reality that no one posses.

Originally posted by boneyard bill
My point is to illustrate how self-understanding is crucial because even our understanding of physics depends upon how we understand our own self-nature.

What this means is that you cannot get to a Buddhist understanding of the world through modern science, but neither can you use modern science to refute that Buddhist understanding.

Can the two somehow be brought together? I don't think that it's out of the question, but I doubt that the approach would be regarded as scientific. Understanding self-nature is, after all, largely a subjective enterprise. Modern Western psychology studies the self as an object. There's nothing wrong with this but it isn't a way out of the dilemma because the Buddhist approach is specifically to study the self as a subject. That leads to the enlightenment of one person only and then whatever is learned has to be communicated to others. But the two parties do not have a common vocabulary with which to discuss the experience so that communication is difficult and still only produces communication. It doesn't produce enlightenment itself.

I can do just about anything and have an experience that will be at some level unlike anyone else�s. I might even be enlightened by it (whatever that means). All I see in your posts is the use of wordplay to make the ordinary appear to be extraordinary.

Starboy

Nowhere357

September 28, 2003, 12:06 PM

The foundation of Buddhism.

Most Buddist sects emphasize the four noble truths.

The four noble truths are interesting:

1) Life is suffering - dukkha
Birth trauma
Illness
Old age
Fear of approaching death
Separation from what one loves
Stuck with what one hates
2) The cause of suffering is desire - tanha
3) The cure for suffering is to remove desire
4) To remove desire, follow the Eightfold path

The eightfold path:

1) Right Knowledge
Understand the Four Noble Truths
2) Right Thinking
Decide to set a life on the correct path
3) Right Speech
Don't lie
Don't criticize others unjustly
Don't use harsh language
Don't gossip
4) Right Conduct
Follow the Five Precepts
5) Right Livelihood
Earn a living that does not harm living things
6) Right Effort
Conquer all evil thoughts
Strive to maintain good thoughts
7) Right Mindfulness
Become intensely aware of all the states in body, feeling, and mind.
8) Right Concentration
Deep meditation to lead to a higher state of consciousness (enlightenment)

The five precepts:

Do not kill
Do not steal
Do not lie
Do not be unchaste
Do not take drugs or drink intoxicants
___________________________________________________

The major sects: Theravada (Hinayana), Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhism.
Theravada is the most straight-forward, Vajrayana is more mystical.

I haven't explored these concepts much, but the apologies for the negativity of the first noble truth show that actually it is a positive concept, imo.

As religions go, I think the fat belly rocks. As philosophy goes, I think he still rocks. He advocates skepticism and discredits authoritarianism, for example, and I'm interested in anything he may have to say.

Nowhere357

September 28, 2003, 12:23 PM

boneyard bill
Modern science is reductionistic through and through.
It seems to me that this is precisely the reason science is so useful. Science is the tool we use to explore physical, objective reality.

But minds exist (we really do have subjective experiences), yet they are not physical or objective. Introspection is the tool we use to exlore mental, subjective reality.

I guess I would claim that reductionism is extremely useful, but does-not/cannot provide a complete discription of reality. Pain has no physical existence - there exist only physical correlations associated with pain - and therefore we can never find it through a microscope.
______________

Meditation is a form of introspection. I think meditation is to the ability to focus and concentrate, as weight-lifting is to the ability to move things around. Meditation is useful. Successful people from athletes to accountants know how to focus and concentrate, which is applied meditation. Dream control is improved by meditation. Meditation techniques help overcome mental hurdles such as addiction. It lowers stress, boosts the immune system, and etc. (Prayer is a form of meditation.)

I've enjoyed reading your posts, and am interested in your opinion of my view.

Starboy

September 28, 2003, 12:31 PM

I think a distinction needs to be made between reality and the experience of reality. There are many experiences of reality that we do at some level share. If we did not I am not sure that we would at all be able to communicate with each other. The question basically is: does your experience of reality differ from mine and how does it differ? And if given enough empirical information about you could I predict what your experience would be? Stay tuned, because such questions are being explored in reality as we speak.

Starboy

Nowhere357

September 28, 2003, 01:16 PM

Starboy
The question basically is: does your experience of reality differ from mine and how does it differ?
From my pov, that is not an important question, because obviously (from my pov) our experience of reality is dependent on perspective. No one else looks out of my eyes.

And if given enough empirical information about you could I predict what your experience would be?
Maybe. Very problematic. But interesting to me is the fact that it cannot be proven that I even have the experience! Do you agree that this validates introspection as a necessary tool in our investigation of reality? If not, why not?

Starboy

September 28, 2003, 01:48 PM

Originally posted by Nowhere357
From my pov, that is not an important question, because obviously (from my pov) our experience of reality is dependent on perspective. No one else looks out of my eyes.

If you attribute some kind of unique property to your POV then I guess your right, but if you place a machine at your point of view and record what is evident and then place a copy of that machine at the same location, if it doesn't record the same information we assume one of the two machines is broken or in need of adjustment.

Your argument appears to be based on ignorance. Since we currently do not know enough about how our brain/minds work to reduce it to a machine therefore we are not in a position to perform such an experiment. Of course we may never accumulate sufficient knowledge to perform such an experiment but at this moment there is no reason to think that given enough time and effort we could not.

Originally posted by Nowhere357
Maybe. Very problematic. But interesting to me is the fact that it cannot be proven that I even have the experience! Do you agree that this validates introspection as a necessary tool in our investigation of reality? If not, why not?

I think mathematicians and logicians only practice your idea of proof. Anyway it is not how science operates. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck then it is a duck until someone shows otherwise. The fact that most people are able to reliably identify a duck says something about the uniqueness of our POV. That it may not be as unique as you think it is.

Of course introspection is part of the investigation of reality. We need it to concoct our explanations. My question to you is, if creatures with introspection didn't exist would reality exist?

Starboy

boneyard bill

September 28, 2003, 07:09 PM

Originally posted by Thomas Ash
I find it hard to imagine the concept of Oneness, however you precisely phrase it, could be 'experienced', in meditation or just normal life. We recognise shoes, matter, time, etc.

Well now, if we could just imagine it why would people spend all those many years in meditation, navel contemplation, lotus positioning and all the other stuff they do?

But let me tell you a little story about Buddhism that may help your imagination. In some forms of Buddhism, the acolyte is ordered to sit and contemplate on the question of how things both exist and do not exist. This is not a Zen koan. There is no paradox being meditated on here. What is being considered is the Buddhist doctrine of anicca (impermanence). Everything exists in a state of flux. Nothing is permanent. In fact everything is changing all the time. So reality exists. It is there before us. And yet it does not exist because it is changed from a moment ago. What exists a moment ago does not exist now. So the acolyte is trying to come to terms with the true nature of existence rather than with the "constructed" nature of our existence than our mind tends to present to us.

There is probably a good deal of survival value in recognizing that the lion approaching us exists in a relatively permanent state and that, while he is actually changing from moment to moment, he isn't likely to change into something non-threatening within the next few moments and we'd better get the hell out of his way.

But when it comes to apprehending the true nature of reality, this practical attachment to "thingness" becomes an impediment. So the acolyte is called upon to meditate on the true nature of reality and the strange way that it both exists and does not exist. But as time goes on and he becomes comfortable with that way of understanding the world and relating to it, he eventually realizes that his own "self" both exists and does not exist. And it is in this state of ceasing to exist while still existing that he realizes his oneness with all of existence.

boneyard bill

September 28, 2003, 07:15 PM

Starboy

September 28, 2003, 07:18 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
But when it comes to apprehending the true nature of reality, this practical attachment to "thingness" becomes an impediment. So the acolyte is called upon to meditate on the true nature of reality and the strange way that it both exists and does not exist. But as time goes on and he becomes comfortable with that way of understanding the world and relating to it, he eventually realizes that his own "self" both exists and does not exist. And it is in this state of ceasing to exist while still existing that he realizes his oneness with all of existence.

The meditator may have what can be interpreted as a feeling of oneness with all of existence but (s)he doesn't know anything more about reality, such as the Andromeda galaxy, then they did before starting their quest for oneness. As you describe it, it seems to me to be the same cheap trick that philosophy pulls. That somehow thinking or meditating is a substitute for actual exploration of reality.

Starboy

Starboy

September 28, 2003, 07:24 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
I don't think we have the slightest conceptual grip on how to proceed with such an undertaking much less develop any technology of it, and I should certainly hope we never do. Talk about mind control!

Boneyard, you need to get out more. It would flabbergast you just what they can do, and they have just started. The more they learn the more like a machine the brain/mind (brind) becomes.

Starboy

boneyard bill

September 28, 2003, 07:30 PM

Thomas Ash asks:

How does Western brain research, foot research, shoe research, etc. presuppose the wrongness of Buddhism and not give its claims a fair shot?

I'm not blaming the researchers or even the scientists. I'm blaming the philosophers. I can only repeat my claim that we've let the method dictate our metaphysics and our ontology. If the reductionist method works then reality must be reductionistic. It's the philosophers who deal with metaphysics and ontology altough, of course, there are many scientists acting as philosophers and especially science educators acting as philosophers so reductionism becomes the accepted wisdom when all we really know is that it is a good method.

Starboy

September 28, 2003, 07:35 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
I'm not blaming the researchers or even the scientists. I'm blaming the philosophers. I can only repeat my claim that we've let the method dictate our metaphysics and our ontology.

Perhaps the reason why science is becoming more authoritative on matters of reality is because people are beginning to realize that if you want to know about reality then it is best to ask those that actually explore it. However if you want to know about upholstery then the philosopher might have some good advice.

Starboy

boneyard bill

September 28, 2003, 07:41 PM

Thomas Ash writes:

What's wrong with reductionism? I see it as simply trying to understand the universe to the greatest extent possible and never stopping asking the 'why?' or 'how?' questions at some arbitrary point. And what would be your alternative?

I have no problem with reductionism as method of ascertaining facts. But the fact that we have obtained our facts through a reductionistic method does not mean that the nature of existence is, itself, reductionistic. My alternative would be teach philosophy is schools. Unfortunately, that won't work because most philosphers have bought into this fallacy themselves. And if they do get any criticism it's likely to come from some feminist or post-modernist or other form of political correctness.

Our universities today are a basket case, at least in the liberal arts. You get no credit for teaching Plato, or Seneca, or even Buddhism - theories that have stood the test of time. Instead, you have to demonstrate your "expertise" by showing that you know something that everyone else doesn't know so everyone jumps to learn the latest fad, be it Freudianism, post-modernism or whatever, and apply it to their discipline.

But I digress, and perhaps exaggerate a wee bit.

So my alternative is to bitch about it on the internet.

boneyard bill

September 28, 2003, 07:45 PM

Starboy writes:

It is very difficult for me to see how a scientist would get very far by presuming philosophical idealism. It would certainly be hard to be a cosmologist with that point of view.

The noted physicist John Wheeler pointed out that we don't need a concept of matter to do physics. All we need is information. Information, of course, is an observer-dependent concept.

Starboy

September 28, 2003, 07:53 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
The noted physicist John Wheeler pointed out that we don't need a concept of matter to do physics. All we need is information. Information, of course, is an observer-dependent concept.

Why is information an observer-dependent concept? I suspect that Wheeler would contend that the information detected would not depend on a particular researcher. It may be information but it is not dependent on a specific subjective experience. Certainly there is a great deal of information that exists in the hordes of computers that dot the world that has never been viewed by humans yet no one would contend that it doesn't exist or that it would appear to be different information if viewed by you as opposed to me. A 10101 is the same for me as it is for you.

Starboy

boneyard bill

September 28, 2003, 07:55 PM

Starboy writes:

Boneyard, your understanding of scientific presuppositions is at least 80 years old. Times have changed. QM has changed everything. There is no question that you cannot separate the observer from what is observed but there is nothing metaphysical about it. Thinking that you could separate them, now that was metaphysical. That old school thinking ignored the fact that our �minds� are a manifestation of reality and are embedded in reality. To presume that our �minds� are somehow free from interaction with everything else in all sorts of ways was to presume a view of reality that no one posses.

No. I'm aware of the QM view, but there are certainly many on these boards who are unaware of it or don't accept it the way you have characterized it, and it was in the context of posters to these boards that I made the comment. Of course, there are many others who don't post to these boards with the same mind set. I'm talking about popular culture and you are objecting that people who "really understand" the issues haven't fallen for it. I don't necessarily disagree.

boneyard bill

September 28, 2003, 07:59 PM

Starboy writes:

All I see in your posts is the use of wordplay to make the ordinary appear to be extraordinary.

My major point is that self-discovery is a valid epistemological method. You've ignored that and addressed tangential issues.

boneyard bill

September 28, 2003, 08:06 PM

Nowhere357 writes:

I've enjoyed reading your posts, and am interested in your opinion of my view.

Thank you. I agree completely with everything you said except the part about meditation. I have very little experience with meditation because I'm just too damn lazy to stick with it so I have no real basis for recommending it or criticizing it. I think there are many ways to engage in self-discovery. Meditation is only one of them.

boneyard bill

September 28, 2003, 08:11 PM

Starboy writes:

That somehow thinking or meditating is a substitute for actual exploration of reality

Mediatation is not a substitute for an exploration of reality. It IS an exploration of reality. But it isn't a substitute for objective research either. It is a supplement to objective research.

boneyard bill

September 28, 2003, 08:20 PM

Starboy writes:

Perhaps the reason why science is becoming more authoritative on matters of reality is because people are beginning to realize that if you want to know about reality then it is best to ask those that actually explore it. However if you want to know about upholstery then the philosopher might have some good advice.

Where on earth did you get the idea that science is becoming more authoritative on matters of reality? Have you not noticed the abundance of New agers, pagans, Christian fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists, Muslim fundamentalists? (Not to mention the post-modernists).

Science is far less authoritative today than it was in my childhood. Personally, I applaud that even as I have considerable reservations about the critics.

Starboy

September 28, 2003, 08:21 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
My major point is that self-discovery is a valid epistemological method. You've ignored that and addressed tangential issues.

I'm all for self-discovery, however I think the meditative or philosophical approach is a dead end. Some of the most interesting discoveries of human behavior are being made as we speak. For instance people are physiologically affected by their mates behavior and they are completely unaware of what is going on. It turns out that if you want to really understand yourself you must first realize that you are an animal and are not significantly different from many of the animals on the planet. That you can learn a great deal about yourself by studying other animals including humans. This is something that I don't think you could ever discover if you took the meditative or �mind� centric approach to self-discovery. Such an approach implies to me that you think you came from nowhere.

Starboy

Starboy

September 28, 2003, 08:41 PM

Originally posted by boneyard bill
Where on earth did you get the idea that science is becoming more authoritative on matters of reality? Have you not noticed the abundance of New agers, pagans, Christian fundamentalists, Jewish fundamentalists, Muslim fundamentalists? (Not to mention the post-modernists).

Science is far less authoritative today than it was in my childhood. Personally, I applaud that even as I have considerable reservations about the critics.

I disagree. People are disappointed in science because it is not a replacement for religion. However they still want their cell phones, high-speed Internet connections and the latest medical treatments. Science has been too successful. There was a time when you could not use the fruits of science without appreciating and knowing something about it. Now any moron can use the most advance technology on the planet and have no idea how it works. All they have to do is press the thingamajig. This is not a failure of science it is a failure of philosophy and religion. Science can only supply the knowledge and the means we must choose the destination. All this spiritual searching you allude to is a symptom that mankind has failed to incorporate all this new knowledge into a meaningful way to guide people on how to live life well. The current strife we see from all this soul searching is a symptom that clinging to the ancient forms of guidance just doesn�t work as far as showing people how to live life well. We are waiting for the next generation of religion-philosophy. However if it isn�t based on what we now know of the universe it will not work. The age of souls, sin, spooks and gods is over.

Starboy

Nowhere357

September 29, 2003, 12:45 AM

Starboy
but if you place a machine at your point of view and record what is evident and then place a copy of that machine at the same location, if it doesn't record the same information we assume one of the two machines is broken or in need of adjustment.
My question to you is, if creatures with introspection didn't exist would reality exist?
Okay, I get your thrust now. I agree that we observe an external reality which exists independantly of our awareness of it.

Your argument appears to be based on ignorance. Since we currently do not know enough about how our brain/minds work to reduce it to a machine therefore we are not in a position to perform such an experiment.
I agree with your points here. I was arguing in a slightly different direction. What I was getting at is if we built a machine that behaved as if sentient, we have no way even in theory of determining whether it was actually sentient, or merely behaving that way. I think that concept validates introspection as a necessary tool, along with science.

I understand the concept that lack of current knowledge does not preclude possible future knowledge. But the objective manifestation of mental experience - the reaction to pain stimulus, for example - is the only thing available for science to study. Mental experience - the experience, not the manifestation - is outside the scope of the objectively orientated scientific method.

Yet the experience exists.

I think mathematicians and logicians only practice your idea of proof
I'm talking about the scientific method. Scientific facts are demonstrable - but as the sentient machine shows, we cannot demonstrate that subjective awareness exists, we only can point to the behavior of matter and energy.

Of course introspection is part of the investigation of reality. We need it to concoct our explanations.
Thank you. But that wasn't quite my question.

Do you agree that this validates introspection as a necessary tool in our investigation of reality? If not, why not?

Nowhere357

September 29, 2003, 01:34 AM

Starboy
The meditator may have what can be interpreted as a feeling of oneness with all of existence but (s)he doesn't know anything more about reality, such as the Andromeda galaxy, then they did before starting their quest for oneness.
This statement directly implies that mental experience is not part of reality. But of course it is. And introspection can modify behavior, which then can affect the world. Introspection does not tell us about the world; it tells us about ourselves. This knowledge is used to determine how be behave and react.

The more they learn the more like a machine the brain/mind (brind) becomes.

Address the thought experiment of the sentient machine. How in theory could its sentience be demonstrated?

Perhaps the reason why science is becoming more authoritative on matters of reality is because people are beginning to realize that if you want to know about reality then it is best to ask those that actually explore it.
If mental experiences exist, how do we explore them, other than introspection? Pain, for example, has two manifestations: there is the physical manifestation which is scientifically observable, and there is the mental manifestation which is not.

This is something that I don't think you could ever discover if you took the meditative or �mind� centric approach to self-discovery. Such an approach implies to me that you think you came from nowhere.
The difference between nowhere and now here is perspective only. :)

Your objections seems to imply that you think the claim is that introspection should replace science. That would be an unfounded mischaracterization.

As boneyard bill said, "Mediatation is not a substitute for an exploration of reality. It IS an exploration of reality. But it isn't a substitute for objective research either. It is a supplement to objective research.

Science can only supply the knowledge and the means we must choose the destination.
"Choosing the destination" would be achieved through introspection. Haven't you just confirmed my position? Science is mute on moral questions, for example.

The age of souls, sin, spooks and gods is over.
Non-sequitor, irrelevant to this discussion. Although it serves to identify why you oppose the notion of the validity of introspection, if you associate things like meditation with beliefs in the supernatural.

Um, don't throw out the baby?

I'm all for self-discovery, however I think the meditative or philosophical approach is a dead end.
But the non-introspective examples you use simply provide objective facts to introspect about! You will not discover whether you should marry someone, for example, by studying the behavior of animals. Introspection is required.