Absolute determinism and the illusion of free will.

Frank wrote:

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I also assert that the evidence for this particular take on REALITY is not nearly as compelling as some of the advocates of the position suggest it to be.

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truth
Frank and Joe, can't tell you how much I appreciate your intelligent and sincere opposition to our "mystical thesis." Let me first of all say that I have no hope of changing your perspectives to that of ours. It would be almost as hopeless as changing gays into straights or vice versa. But it does make for some great mental exercise.
Frank, you say that my distinction between explanation and description is a difference that makes no difference. I beg to differ. We are not trying to explain reality in the sense of describing "its" global nature. That would quixotic in the extreme. Nor are we trying to "explain" what caused "realilty" to come into existence. I, at least, am only trying to characterize a perspective on human experience that is "liberating," that permits a sense of freedom from the stresses and restraints presented by an ego-bound perspective on life. It is the "realilty" of this condition that I am addressing, not Reality as a whole, whatever that may be. My characterization is what I mean by "description." "Explaining" realilty is not something that any philosopher has ever attempted as far as I am aware.
I think that our positions differ fundamentally from those of theists and atheists They argue, very often, that their descriptions of reality (i.e., that there IS a god or that there ISN'T a god) are more than speculations, that they KNOW their positions to be true because of some rational or intuitive clue to the Truth. I do not state that at all. I do not speculate about the truth of the mystical perspective, i.e., that all is one, that I and my environment are one--that I do not exist as a separate entity surrounded by and in a sense opposed to my environment. I SEE it to be so. The atheist and the theist BELIEVE their propositions to be true. My perspective is much more humble than their's; it is merely a "description", or an attempt at a description of what can be immediately SEEN, with the kind of primitive certainty one expresses when saying that he is seeing the color yellow. This is our impass: you insist that I am making an unproven and perhaps unprovable speculation, an assertion about the nature of the case in question; I'm merely TRYING to DESCRIBE an experience--A PERSPECTIVE not a proposition.
Nevertheless, I'm very appreciative that you have forced me to make that concession. A lesser mind might allow me to delude myself into thinking that I'm explaining something, in the sense of answering a question. You and Joe have no question to be answered. You are merely finding our perspective to be untenable because we are not PROVING them to be true propositions.
When Tywvel says that "there is unltimately no self to relate to objects" I agree because I do not SEE (at least when I'm in the right frame of mind) any self to relate to objects. And because I see no self, the "SPLIT" between self and object disappears, such that there are ultimately no "objects" as well. I do not agree with him because of the coherence of his logic or because of his empirical "evidence." I agree because he describes what I SEE. And you are right in saying that so long as one merely holds that this is be so, one cannot prove that it HAS to be so. But if you SEE it to be so, as you see the color yellow, you will realize that it doesn't HAVE to be so in some philosophical sense of causal necessity, only that it is SEEN to be so. Now you may argue that just because it APPEARS to be so that that is a weak foundation for certainty. You would be right in terms of a scientific epistemology of truth, but not in terms of an existential epistemology of a more psychological form of "personal knowledge." In the latter sense, that is what really makes up our experienced lives. The rest is merely alienated abstraction. Something apart from us. Mystical "truth" is experienced; it is personal; it is existential; it is, pardon the expression, "real."
Joe, you argue that I cannot say that dualism gives a better description of the human condition than does dualism. I must squirm out of this challenge by noting that I experience both the dual and nondual versions of experience; you experience only the dual. So I trust you to treat me like an anthropologist who has been to gogolavia when you have not. I can describe it and make comparisons that you cannot. Pardon the weasling, but that's the way it is.

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Frank and joefromchicago

Frank wrote:

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Bottom line, however, is that Twyvel asserted (and has continued to assert over the several years we've discussed this issue) that:

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...there is ultimately no self to relate to objects...

JL picked up on this occasion of Twyvel asserting that, and wrote:

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Twyvel's reminder that there is ultimately no self to relate to objects is correct, but it forces us into the realm of silence, a realm where our intellectual friends, Joe, Frank, et.al. are not willing to follow.

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Now let me make myself clear on this: The reality of existence MAY be that "ultimately there is no self to relate to objects."

I certainly cannot say that REALITY cannot contain that component -- that it is impossible in REALITY that ultimately there is no self to relate to objects.

But there is absolutely no way that I can say: It has to be so.

Now I go on to speculation: None of you -- not Twyvel, JL, nor Fresco has ever said anything that convinces me that you know (in any reasonable sense of that word) either.

Just as the Christians insist that what they experience is KNOWLEDGE that there exists a God -- and just as some atheists with whom I have argued insist that what they experience is KNOWLEDGE that no gods exist -- you folks seem to be insisting that you KNOW that ultimately there is no self to relate to objects.

I don't think Christians KNOW there is a God; I don't think atheists KNOW there are no gods; I don't think any of you three KNOW that ultimately there is no self to relate to objects.

I may be wrong.

But my assessment of the evidence is that all of you -- you three, the theists, the atheists -- are making guesses about the unknown -- and apparently your guesses sound so good to you - and are so important to you -- you simply will not see them for the guesses they are.

Don't know how to explain that any better.

joefromchicago wrote:

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JLNobody wrote: Twyvel's reminder that there is ultimately no self to relate to objects is correct....
joefronchicago

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How do you know that?

JLNobody

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....just to add to the last comments that this type of "knowing" is not particularly "mystical".....it is a qualitative shift to a position in which the shortcomings of what we call "normal knowledge" are self-evident.

I used the word "preferable" above to describe such a position, but perhaps I should have prefaced this by saying the alternative was simply untenable.

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truth
Well, I guess it is not all a silent realm. You have made dualistic comments, Twyvel, ABOUT what one can actually SEE non-dualistically if one looks closely and openly enough, i.e., that there is no observable observer, and therefore no split between an isolated self and the world of observable objects around the observer. My true self is--and this IS a propositional assertion, I guess--not a small observable "self"; it is a very large nonobservable Self, indeed, it is all of that in nature which at any moment produces "my" experiences. It has been referred to in Hinduism as the Atman, that aspect of the observer that is one with Brahman, the unknowable Reality. Also, just as (little) "I" does not exist as a distinct "thing"--only as an experience--in the world, the "objects" which are perceived ARE me; they are my experience, which is me. This is the meaning of the zen dictum, and one of my favorites, "All things enlighten me."

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truth
O.K., Fresco. What we say about the shortcomings of normal (dualistic?) knowing is not the nondualistic mystical experience itself. Agreed.

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This is still going? Where're we at? Have we progressed any since November?

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truth
Rufio, I don't know if we have progressed very much toward the resolutions of our disagreements, but we understand one another better, and we've refined the terms of the debate(s)...I think.

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Ahhh. I was just wondering if, without reading 10 pages, I could safely add something sort of on the same lines of what was said the last time I was here without being off-topic.

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Re: truth

JLNobody wrote:

Let me first of all say that I have no hope of changing your perspectives to that of ours. It would be almost as hopeless as changing gays into straights or vice versa. But it does make for some great mental exercise.

I have no particular objection to non-dualism as a metaphysical system. Although I haven't read much Eastern philosophy, I've read enough of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to be, at least, intrigued. But I have no illusions that non-dualism is anything but a metaphysical system.

JLNobody wrote:

"Explaining" realilty is not something that any philosopher has ever attempted as far as I am aware.

Depends on what you mean by "explain."

JLNobody wrote:

I think that our positions differ fundamentally from those of theists and atheists They argue, very often, that their descriptions of reality (i.e., that there IS a god or that there ISN'T a god) are more than speculations, that they KNOW their positions to be true because of some rational or intuitive clue to the Truth. I do not state that at all. I do not speculate about the truth of the mystical perspective, i.e., that all is one, that I and my environment are one--that I do not exist as a separate entity surrounded by and in a sense opposed to my environment. I SEE it to be so. The atheist and the theist BELIEVE their propositions to be true.

That is truly a distinction without a difference. You SEE something and you decide that it is the truth. Yet there is no basis for making that decision. You cannot rely upon dualistic sense perceptions, since (as I have explained on other threads) doing so would be an attempt to yield a a true conclusion based on false evidence. In other words, the truth of non-dualism proves the falsity of dualism (and vice versa). So you cannot use "dualistic" evidence to support your position.

Nor can you use your own "non-dualistic" sense perceptions (whatever those might be), since you have no basis for determining whether those are true or merely delusions. At best, you are left with the belief that non-dualism is true. And once you are left with only that, you are left in the same position as the theists who, on faith alone, BELIEVE their propositions to be true.

JLNobody wrote:

My perspective is much more humble than their's; it is merely a "description", or an attempt at a description of what can be immediately SEEN, with the kind of primitive certainty one expresses when saying that he is seeing the color yellow. This is our impass: you insist that I am making an unproven and perhaps unprovable speculation, an assertion about the nature of the case in question; I'm merely TRYING to DESCRIBE an experience--A PERSPECTIVE not a proposition.

Unfortunately, your description/perspective is a proposition: you propose that your perspective is, in some sense, accurate. I cannot tell, however, if what you describe is true or a delusion. Moreover, you have no way of convincing me that it is not a delusion, since an explanation based on dualistic evidence would disprove your non-dualistic conclusion, and a non-dualistic explanation would make no sense dualistically. In effect, your belief is all there is to convince not only me but yourself as well.

JLNobody wrote:

When Tywvel says that "there is unltimately no self to relate to objects" I agree because I do not SEE (at least when I'm in the right frame of mind) any self to relate to objects. And because I see no self, the "SPLIT" between self and object disappears, such that there are ultimately no "objects" as well. I do not agree with him because of the coherence of his logic or because of his empirical "evidence." I agree because he describes what I SEE.

Then you agree with Twyvel because of a simple inductive proof, in much the same way that I believe it is bitterly cold out today because everyone else seems to feel the cold as I do. Yet inductive proofs are valid only in a dualistic universe: we cannot say, with any certainty, that they apply in a non-dualistic setting.

As such, JLN, no matter how many ways you try to get there, you inevitably arrive at non-dualism through the path of dualism. Now, that may not be a problem for you, and I have no particular objection to someone adhering, by faith alone, to that which is logically inconsistent, as long as that person acknowledges that their belief is indeed just that: a belief.

JLNobody wrote:

Joe, you argue that I cannot say that dualism gives a better description of the human condition than does dualism. I must squirm out of this challenge by noting that I experience both the dual and nondual versions of experience; you experience only the dual. So I trust you to treat me like an anthropologist who has been to gogolavia when you have not. I can describe it and make comparisons that you cannot.

How do you know that I haven't experienced non-dualism? In fact, how would I know that I had experienced non-dualism?

JLNobody wrote:

Pardon the weasling, but that's the way it is.

JLN, weaseling it may be. But as you, alone among all others who share your opinion, have been consistently fair, honest, and forthright, I do not hesitate in granting you a full pardon.

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twyvel wrote:

Frankly, I don't agree with this analysis, but, for our purposes, let's say that you're correct. Yet any conclusions, based upon an acceptance of the existence of the subject, cannot deny that existence. Or, at least, no such conclusion can be logically based on that premise.

twyvel wrote:

Y'know, twyvel, you almost had me there, until you came up with this statement. The notion of a "provisional self" is complete nonsense, both in dualistic and non-dualistic terms. Dualism cannot be based on a "provisional self," since that calls into question dualistic evidence (e.g. sense perceptions, ideas). On the other hand, non-dualism cannot abide the notion of a "provisional self," since non-dualism posits the non-existence of the self. Anyone acting on the basis that they are, even provisionally, a "self" would thus be laboring under a delusion.

twyvel wrote:

Simply put, consciousness cannot observe that which it is.

How do you know that?

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fresco wrote:

....just to add to the last comments that this type of "knowing" is not particularly "mystical".....it is a qualitative shift to a position in which the shortcomings of what we call "normal knowledge" are self-evident.

To whom?

fresco wrote:

I used the word "preferable" above to describe such a position, but perhaps I should have prefaced this by saying the alternative was simply untenable.

How do you know it's untenable?

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Joe

Semantic tennis is futile. Even a cursory reading around the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, or "fuzzy logic" is sufficient to cast doubt the axioms behind an epistemology based on "objective reality". Your apparent reliance on binary logic as the final arbiter of debate could perhaps be viewed against the following observations:

" So far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain.
And so far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality". (Albert Einstein)

" The black and white world of science struck me as unreasonable, as when a zealous prosecuter applies the letter and not the spirit of the law...Language, especially the math language of science creates artificial boundaries..." (Bart Kosko in his introduction to "Fuzzy Thinking")

In essence a non dualist position is one that allows for temporary dualism as a static snapshot, or special case for particular purposes, but it is one that ubderlines the transience and artificiality of the dualistic mode.

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fresco wrote:

Joe

Semantic tennis is futile.

Well, given that you haven't answered any of my questions, I suppose it's more accurate to say that I've been playing semantic solitaire.

fresco wrote:

Even a cursory reading around the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, or "fuzzy logic" is sufficient to cast doubt the axioms behind an epistemology based on "objective reality".

Of course, the Heisenberg principle and "fuzzy logic" are based on an assumption of a dualistic universe. So I don't see how these can cast doubt on any kind of dualistic epistemology.

fresco wrote:

Your apparent reliance on binary logic as the final arbiter of debate could perhaps be viewed against the following observations:

I don't regard "binary logic" to be the final arbiter of metaphysics. As for the observations: give me some evidence that Einstein rejected subject-object dualism and I'll take them seriously.

fresco wrote:

In essence a non dualist position is one that allows for temporary dualism as a static snapshot, or special case for particular purposes, but it is one that ubderlines the transience and artificiality of the dualistic mode.

Well, the same could be said of schizophrenia.

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That particular Einstein quotation was used by Kosko in his warning about the limitations of applying mathematical models (with fixed set memberships) to "reality". i.e. the law of the excluded middle is pragmatically untenable, and has no bearing on Einstein's dualistic leanings or otherwise. However, once we remove Einsteins axioms of (a)the constancy of the speed of light , and (b) the applicability of the same laws of physics for all observers (both in fact recent developments) then little much remains to support a dualistic physical reality. *

As for "schizophrenia" you indeed characterize the apocryphal "doctor" who comes to such a diagnosis because he cannot identify with the rationale of his patient. However I might simply counter with the Laingian definition of "schizophrenia" (a sane response to an insane situation) as being a more apt description of non-dualists. Smile

*LATER EDIT: I should have stressed that this point potentially challenges your distinction between physics and metaphysics.

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Twyvel, what do you mean by a "provisional self" exactly?

There are plenty of things that exist, but not in a materialist sense - cultural categories, which have many exceptions but can somehow be seen the same way by large numbers of people, or language, for which the sounds used to form it do not have empirically determinable segments representing words, phrases or syllables, but which a large number of people again can interpret in the same way. These things aren't materially real because there is no objectively empirical measurement of them - they require subjective interpretation to understand. Yet, contrary to what you might think with your relativist veiw, they are universal to at least one group of people, despite being subjective.

Are you saying that the self is perceived, and universally perceived in similar ways, even though it doesn't exist?

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truth
Rufio, yes I AM saying that the feeling of "self" is a purely subjective perception, and I ASSUME that it is universally perceived (except by mystics) in similar ways. I cannot know how others see themselves with any assurance--the old epistemological conundrum of "other minds," you know. And there may be significant cross-cultural differences which to my knowledge are too impenetrable for empirical tudy by anthropologists. But I do think that ego is universal mainly because it is an extremely functional delusion for such intensely social animals as ourselves.

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truth
Well, Joe, I see you remain gay. We have laid siege to your fortress of dualism without success. But I'm sure the three of us would not know what to do without you. Your arguments are true challenges. I do think, however, that if you were to apply each of them to yourself you would be at least as flabbergasted as you make me.
You ask me how I know that you have not also experienced nondualism. I stand corrected: everyone has nondualistic experience; it is the basis for our conscious life. When you are confronted by something suddenly, for a split second you are your experience of it. But instantly you--and I--make sense of "it" "out there" and find refuge in the dualism that permits meaningfulness. In meditation--when it is working--one nondualistically rests in the meaninglessness of unity with one's experiential environment. I will get back to your arguments after a rest or two.

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I bet the mystics perceive it too, they're just in denial. Smile

I don't think cross-cultural differences can be that hard to get around, as they are, after all, materially nonexistent. That is, if one human being can learn to see themself in a radically different way, so can the rest of us, if we lived in that culture long enough. I haven't heard of a culture with such a definition of the self though, so that remains to be proven.

Anyway, my next question would be, if the ego/self/whatever is universal (as a delusion or as reality) doesn't that suggest that thers is something that's empirically real and therefore universally observable that contributes to the perception of the self? For instance, while there's no empirical definition of race that will hold up to any scrutiny at all, race is derived from certain empirical visual cues that people are used to looking for; when we hear words and stress in language, we look at things in contexts to get around the lack of empirical distinction, but the contexts and the sounds we take out of them are to some extent based on perceptions of empirical auditory phenomena. So wouldn't it be possible that the "provisional self," though it may or may not be an "object" of sorts, is based on some empirical, real sense (physical or mental) or cue of some sort? And wouldn't that necessitate SOME object/entity to produce that cue? So even if we can't know that everything we think we know about our selves is corrent, we can know that there is some minute distinction of our selves from the rest of the natural world that can be empirically sensed, and for some reason, universally interpreted in the same way?

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Absolute determinism and the illusion of free will.

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