The Philosophy of the Self.

truth
Some people argue that Nihilism is a bad philosophy, but you are the first, to my knowledge, to say it is not even a philosophy. I'm afraid to ask you why you think so. Nietzsche has been called a nihilist and the most influential philosopher (at least in Europe) in the twentieth century. And the same has been said of Richard Rorty, except that his phenomenal influence has been in the United States. Maybe they are not Nihilists, just anti-foundationalists. I can't say, yet.

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Another ASIDE.

I am interested in every post, even the rhythm of the posts, and would like to print out the thread, a procedure that takes a lot of time and, most expensively to me, ink.

This might propel me to see if the site can arrange something like the NYTimes site has, a printer friendly format. Well, wishes and knishes...

G'day.

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Book-marking.
I'm now reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. This is finally starting to make sense.

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Philosophy is, by etymology, the love of learning or knowing. Nihilism is the fear of learning anything. I haven't read a great deal of Nietszche (actually, to be absolutely honest, I haven't read any of his stuff - I was significantly behind in the reading when we started learning about him, and after one lecture I decided I didn't want to know any more), and I probably couldn't say if he was a Nihilist or not. From what I did happen to glance at, though, I can say he was a bigot, and a psycho, and he really didn't seem to know what he was talking about at all, whether it was subsequently influential or not. Then again, I guess I haven't emersed myself sufficiently in his ramblings to really be an expert on the subject either. So fresco can feel free to write off my opinions on Nietszche as uninformed.

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Welcome aboard Diane.

There's another philosophical "biking classic" you might like called "Jupiters Travels".

Regards fresco.

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fresco wrote:

In summary I have rejected "objective truth" and "set membership" which are the basis of ordinary logic. (n.b. mathematically, "fuzzy logic" has had considerable success recently), and I have suggested that the default mode for such rejection is a transcendent or "higher order" view of self/world.

You have done nothing of the sort. Indeed, your acceptance of "objective truth" is apparent in every sentence you write. For instance:

fresco wrote:

To see how this transcends "logic", I might start with a common perceptual phenomenon like the Muller Lyer Illusion (reversed arrow heads give false impression of length). If line A "appears" to be longer than line B then this can be shown to be a property of the arrow heads provided that the observer has had the particular cultural experience of living with perpendicular buildings.

You use terms like "false," "length," and "perpendicular" and yet claim there's no "objective truth"? You're kidding yourself, or else you're kidding us. Such terms are meaningless unless you posit some sort of objective truth. And so there's nothing to your example: you use objective truths to lead to a rejection of objective truths, which is simply impossible.

fresco wrote:

Suppose a pedantic guy with a microscope comes along and attempts to measure the lines to 3 decimal places. The chances are that he would announce the lines to be "unequal" according to his measurement criteria. So "sameness" depends on who, why, and how the measuring is carried out.

That's true in a practical, largely trivial sense of "same." Certainly, our perceptions are prone to error. But "sameness" can be objective nevertheless: otherwise, we couldn't even say that 5=5.

fresco wrote:

Thus similarity and difference are not "properties of the object" , they are aspects of the functional relationship between subject and object. And "fixed set membership" from which all "logical argument proceeds" ignores the dynamics of perceptual states.

As well it should, just as mathematics ignores the "dynamics of perceptual states."

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Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

Taking what Focus has reported about "fuzzy logic", perception research, and the insights of Wittgenstein, and Kuvazs' discussion of findings in quantum theory, those traditionalists among us may want to become a bit less attached to their notions of the hegemony of traditional logic and the absolutism of "facts", unless, Joe, all that is inadmissable evidence.

Quite the reverse, JLN: I'm the only one here who is arguing against the hegemony of "traditional logic." Traditional logic is hegemonic only in a system where there are, inter alia, subjects and objects. In contrast, in a system where there is neither (i.e. in a system where "all is one"), such logic is useless. One can no more prove the existence of a subject-less universe with subject-dependent logic than one can measure distance with color.

JLNobody wrote:

I for one havepretty much run out of motivation, even to clarify for Terry (?) the meaning of non-dualism. I know that my efforts will be rejected because of a general inclination of people to exercise "bad faith" when encountering other paradigms, and/or because of a persistent insistence that non-dualism make sense in dualistic terms.

The only people who have insisted that nondualism makes sense in dualistic terms are those who endorse the notion of nondualism. As such, I have been the only one in this discussion who has insisted that nondualism be defended strictly on nondualistic terms. If anyone has been guilty of "bad faith" it is those who pretend that nondualism makes sense in dualistic terms.

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twyvel wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:
On the other hand, I have a big problem with explaining nondualism by traditional logic.

I guess you mean, "trying" to explain.

Well, I suppose "failing" is really the mot juste.

twyvel wrote:

Are you saying no effort should be made?

I'm saying that any effort to explain nondualism by means of dualistic logic is doomed to failure.

twyvel wrote:

As JLNobody has said several times and "made quite clear", attempting to explain nondualism dualistically is difficult enough, and perhaps folly but the attempt is made regardless and rightly so, for believe it or not some people actually "get it", ..eventually.

Attempting to explain nondualism dualistically is not "perhaps" folly, it is the very definition of "folly." As such, any efforts in that regard to convince people to "get it" are, at best, misguided, at worst fraudulent.

twyvel wrote:

Why you would want to exaggerate and exacerbate the problem as in your above is beyond me.

I want you to be true to your own system, twyvel. I want you to renounce the errors that you have, regrettably, fallen into and return to the consistent path of nondualism. I am, consequently, trying to save you from yourself. No need to thank me.

twyvel wrote:

What does "object" mean? As I think fresco and JLNobody have said an observed "object" is a process not a thing; light, sound, smell etc. perception, and (apparent) observer are in constant change. One cannot have the same experience twice. Repetition is a myth.

Yes, and no one can cross the same river twice either. But then how can there be "process" at all in a system where all is unity? How can things like "perceptions" be understood in such a system? If it's true that "all is one," then certainly all "smells" are "sounds," all "feelings" are "seeings." If "all is one," then even saying "one cannot have the same experience twice" is meaningless, since the notions of "same" and "twice" involve a notion of multiplicity. Thus, not only can no one have the same experience twice in a nondualistic system, no one can have any experience at all.

twyvel wrote:

Yes, quite right, it happens all the time, and it is happening right now. But I don't think Sartre knew that, he was a dualist trying to reconcile with the recognition that consciousness cannot be observed; that one end of the subject---object relation was an ?'unknown'. His explanations are unconvincing.

I'll make a deal with you, twyvel: you identify which philosophers you disagree with up front, and I won't waste your time trying to refute them.

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Joe,

"Mathematical truth" is a special case and when modelling on such concepts (perpendicular etc) we are basically into "platonic forms". Such forms are reified within a common language as perceptual category labels.

Note that I am not denying "phyical reality" se se. I am denying that there are two different sorts of stuff (physical and mental). We perceive "structure out there" because our own internal structure is wired up and programmed in specific ways...different individuals-different programming....different wiring-different species.

Now of course I have just used the word "different" in its common sense mode but I have to start somewhere using ordinary language concepts and I am aware that my "conceptual needs" require such a starting point. If I later demolish "similarity" and "difference" in my transcendent claims it can be justified within a higher order of "internal coherence" of the emergent model. (Newtons gravitation was not thrown out by Einstein, its range of applicability was curtailed).

As we have said. ...no amount of rhetorical argument will convince the skeptic...its very much a "now I see it" experience...but both quantum mechanics and "non causal" assimilation/accommodation models point in a "scientific way" to what was already advocated in the "mystical tradition".

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truth
Joe, in response to your VERY capable rebuttal--one that re-invigorates me to make this effort--I can do no better than Focus's last post, but let me make some elaborations. The logical use of language must be used as a kind of suicidal attempt to transcend itself when talking to people who have, as the buddhists called it, "attached" to their categories such that they see them as real and fixed. I've always thought, even before my buddhist explorations (actualy since the days of General Semantics in the 60s), that reification is the original sin of the mind. We can use only language--the only communication tool we have in common to POINT to--as opposed to describing--our orientation (and essentiallly an unfixed one, not one fossilized in language--despite our dictums) , one that goes beyond our mundane conventional perspective. Thus all of our statements will have built into them handles for you to grab onto in your "very reasonable" critiques. Very frankly, you say you are not endorsing traditional logic, but every statement you have made contradicts that--at least your cognitive "style" when applied to the topic of nondualism is as appropriate as drinking soup with a fork. You argue RIGHTLY that "nondualism be defended strictly on nondualistic terms". Unfortunately that is not possible. Language is inherently dualistic (as we've noted many times). But one CAN in a very exotic way communicate nondualistically, as we see in the zen literature where monks engage in quite "meaningless and extralogical" (paradoxical) discussions--a way of demonstrating their non-attachment to reified categories of thought.
The biggest problem I have seen from our side is the danger of subjectivism, qua extreme idealism falling into solipcism. I cannot accept the notion that ONLY my mind and ITS experiences exist, if only because upon my informing you (a meaningless gesture in itself) that you are a figment of my imagination you will most likely counter with "ditto." As I see it there IS only experience, but it is not inherently MINE since there is no ME other than the idea/experience of a "me." There is consciousness everywhere and it is a mystery to me regarding its possessor(s). Consciousness is a very mysterious phenomenon, metaphorically, a magnificent diamond with countless facets, all connected but not necessarily apparent to "one another" (gasp, the eternal need to put ideas in quotes). Our heads are not crowded with the experiences and thoughts of all others (like the Borg collectivized individual). I would not(could not) venture to uncover this mystery. I have no need to. It is enough to realize the nature of my consciousness, something that happens and, in our species at least, has as one of many passing, changing, "objects" an ephemeral feeling of a separate self at its center. By not attaching to this self or any other thought object I feel a greater freedom to see, smell, and taste life concretely, immediately, using thought and all its abstract categories pragmatically but never locking, or attaching, my otherwise free consciousness onto them. I hope I have POINTED TO the nature of "attachment" to absolutized ideas and how this obstructs one's originally free consciousness, and since this consciousness is NOT the property of an ego-self, a "me" as opposed to all else, this radical experientialism is other than solipcism. Needless to say, this has been a very difficult effort, but not because I am trying to be logical; it is difficult because I am trying to point to a perspective that makes sense only to those who already share it. Gasp.

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This is one of the most intimidating threads I've ever read; however, I'll dip in one toe and ask how Joe and Rufio, Fresco, JLN and Twyvel would interpret this quote from Thomas Jefferson, writing on shared ideas--leading to copyright laws....

Quote:

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

Displaying my complete ignorance--how can original ideas develop, if not from an object (mind)? Now I'll just read.

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In rapid response mode I would firstly dispute "original ideas". All ideas are formulated in a zeitgeisst which includes "originator" and potential "sharers" within a common social paradigm. It has often been said in science that the "same ideas" seem to occur almost simultaneously in different workers.

As for the comparisons with "possession of tangible assets" this is reminiscent of the precursors to linguistic riddles e.g. for "time" What can you not see, hear, or touch...but you can make it, loose it, waste it etc.....and similarly for "idea" What can you share and keep the same amount for yourself ? etc, etc.....This is linguistic gymnastics to elicit applause for after dinner speakers.

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joefromchicago

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I'm saying that any effort to explain nondualism by means of dualistic logic is doomed to failure.

How would you know? If in your case it has failed then what are you talking about with your use of the word, "nondualism"? Obviously it's been explained and understood to some extent.

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I want you to be true to your own system, twyvel. I want you to renounce the errors that you have, regrettably, fallen into and return to the consistent path of nondualism. I am, consequently, trying to save you from yourself. No need to thank me.

Pretentious nonsense, .to put it ever so lightly.

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Yes, and no one can cross the same river twice either.

It's not "either" joe. Your above metaphor means precisely what I said, namely, "One cannot have the same experience twice."

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But then how can there be "process" at all in a system where all is unity?

"process" is understood from the dualism of language.

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How can things like "perceptions" be understood in such a system?

A mystic attempting to indicate nondualism to others has to use a means of understanding that is common to them.

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If it's true that "all is one," then certainly all "smells" are "sounds," all "feelings" are "seeings."

I would say, they are all "You", yet ?'you' are beyond all. An observed "object" a "human body" is a process, ?'in process': light, color, odor, sound, etc., perception, and (apparent) observer; body sensations, thoughts, feeling, etc., are in constant flux, changing, evolving, moving, a movement in consciousness (Krishnamurti), impermanent, (Buddhists concept of impermanence and interdependence).

You are, and I am that process and the awareness of it, process = awareness, yet I am beyond it for I am other then a process, or an appearance. I am all and beyond all, (Nisargadatta).

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If "all is one," then even saying "one cannot have the same experience twice" is meaningless, since the notions of "same" and "twice" involve a notion of multiplicity.

Yes, nondually, everything just, IS, And that's why phases like, "I am that", "Thou are that", etc. are used. It's also why Koans are used, to attempt to point to something that cannot be pointed to, at least not direrctly. Yet it is right here right now.

Nondualism is something we're attempting to point to from the mirage of dualism. Meaning, nondualism is a dualist concept. Nondualism is not nondualism. In that sense and seemingly contrary to what has been said on this thread, an understanding of nondualism can only be had from dualism, (if it could be understood at all) because ?'understanding' is dualistic. Nondualism as a concept is generally understood on this thread., i.e. the sense that, "all is one", but that understanding is understood from a dualist context. To know nondualism is to not know it, it is to BE it.

Or as Advaitic texts puts it, " To understand ones own non-understanding is not true understanding. Rather, not to understand that one understands, that is, the non-understanding of understanding is true understanding" (paraphrased)

The dilemma is, in dualism we are nothing; as awareness one cannot find them ?'self', in the observable universe, including within the interior of ones being, as thought, body sensation etc. We are habituated to imagining our ?'self' as an observed object, body, thoughts, sensation, but they do not constitute a ?'self' for they are being observed; how can you be the body if You are observing it, and if You are the observer? As the Zen master Huang Po said, "Remember the observed can not themselves observe". So the "observer" cannot be found in material dualism, because the observer is nothing that is observable, as it is doing the "observing".

Once it is recognized that one is not anything observed they are at loss to say they are anything at all. Even though they are still tethered to believing they are a body they have a sense (intellectually, intuitively or whatever) that they are not.

However in nondualism the opposite is the case; You are everything. That we could actually BE not only something but everything is hard if not impossible to grasp from "knowing" because to "know" something is to be separate from it, it's dualistic. To know something is to be other then that which is known. It's an oxymoron to say "I know myself", because the ?'self' that is known is not the "I " that knows. The I that knows cannot know the I that knows.

One just IS.

" IS " is an attempt to orient towards, ?'NOW'..now = nondualism.

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Thus, not only can no one have the same experience twice in a nondualistic system, no one can have any experience at all.

Yes, I don't think it's an "experience" in our understanding of that word, for there's no ?'experiencer', things just, "are".

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be an uncola to the world

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Brilliant reply fresco.

On my ways out the door,. where ideas come from one cannot say, after all what is a ?'mind' other then an idea itself ?

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truth
Twyvel, a wonderful meditation. I have to study it further. I would like to make the obvious qualification of your recognition that "one just IS" that one is just ISing.
I've always felt that when we die we become what we were before birth: nothing. I add that that is precisely what we are NOW, except for the illusion of ego. To be nothing is to be NO THING, which is, as you note, to be everything.

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Yes JLNobody, thank you..

I like that.

ISing

And I am still reviewing your last couple of meaty posts as well.

Smile

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Doesn't it get boring to ignore the opposition and just agree with yourselves all the time? This doesn't seem like an exchange of knowledge, more like an entrenching thereof.

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truth
Actually, Rufio, we HAVE been exchanging with Joe, and benefitting from his most rational challenges, challenges that force us to make more clear to ourselves our own assumptions. Our intention is to SHARE insights we have struggled long and hard to acquire, not to win arguments. Anyway, even if I wished to win against Joe I would fail because he is too smart, and I can't win against you because you don't listen.

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Thank you, Algis, let me cheerfully agree with you.

Um, burp, pardon the interruption.

Still listening.

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