Terry,
Without looking it up I suspect that "information" takes unusual meaning within the system. I'll check up on Capra.
truth
Ooooh, Twyvel, that was so profound.
Isn't it strange that I keep getting this message in my brain that I can see some things, smell some things, hear some things, feel/touch some things, and think thoughts that seems to be saying something to "me" that I'm having some form of communication with other monkeys.
Mine keeps telling me to stay home from work and clean the guns??????
twyvel wrote:joefromchicago wrote:
Quote: I hope everyone else appreciated the irony as much as I did when twyvel complained about the effrontery of Frank and Terry actually agreeing with each other. Really, twyvel, that was too funny!
The only thing that could have made it better would have been if the other members of the non-dualistic amen corner, fresco and JLN, had submitted their obligatory "oooh, twyvel, you're so profound" follow-up posts. That would have been priceless!
That's incorrect
joefromchicagoFrank and
Terry agreeing with each other. That is a misinterpretation.
This is how it went:
Frank wrote on the. "Illusion of free will" thread:
Quote: Twyvel
I have no animosity toward you -- I merely am pointing out that you are peddling a belief system here on the Internet -- and like most peddlers of belief systems, you often present it as though you KNOW it to be so.
What we live in MAY be an illusion of some kind. It also MAY be exactly what it seems to be to people in the street. It also MAY be something so different from either of these alternatives, that the REALITY of what it is cannot be comprehended -- whether by you or me or the non-dualistic whatever.
You have picked out one of these several possibilities and are peddling it as the truth. You seem unable to comprehend both the fact that you are doing it -- and the implications of the fact that you are.
Continue to do so. It apparently makes you complete (irony intended).
When I see the belief system being peddled -- I will share the observation.
Let's both live with that.
(And though
Frank did not mention it here,
FrankFrank wrote on this thread:
Quote: Ahhh, Terry.
SO MANY BELIEF SYSTEMS...so little time to challenge them all.
The irony lies in
FranksFrank presents
Terry and
Frank as crusaders against and challengers of all BELIEF SYSTEMS,
And the irony is
.
As I have stated:
Terry her/himself is an advocate and believer, and to use
Frank's word, a "peddler", and to use
Terry's word, an evangelist, of the Material Dualist Belief System
just like the Christians, according to
Frank.
Terry and
Frank agreeing with and supporting each other has nothing to do with what I said; Nothing wrong with mutual support.
What has everything to do with what I said, is that the DUALIST MATERIAL BELIEF SYSTEM that
Terry is an advocate of is not only unquestioned and unchallenged by
Terry and
Frank as the most pervasive and noxious belief system on the planet, it is encouraged, supported and certainly believed in on
Terry's part and for the most part accepted unquestioningly by
Frank.
So there you have it, the debunkers of belief systems are an irony unto themselves.
Twyvel
How can you possibly quote me as saying:
Quote:What we live in MAY be an illusion of some kind. It also MAY be exactly what it seems to be to people in the street. It also MAY be something so different from either of these alternatives, that the REALITY of what it is cannot be comprehended -- whether by you or me or the non-dualistic whatever.
...and then assert
Quote:What has everything to do with what I said, is that the DUALIST MATERIAL BELIEF SYSTEM that Terry is an advocate of is not only unquestioned and unchallenged by Terry and Frank as the most pervasive and noxious belief system on the planet, it is encouraged, supported and certainly believed in on Terry's part and for the most part accepted unquestioningly by Frank.
Are you letting this discussion short-circuit your reasoning power?
There is absolutely, positively no way I "accept" ANY guess about reality.
As for your last sentence -- it only makes sense if what preceded it is accurate -- and as I have pointed out, "what preceded it" is anything but accurate.
truth
This day has been too productive for me to catch up with all this fertility. If my printer were working I could have a record to refer to while responding to all the wonderful ideas in this exchange.
But what I'll do here is just try to address Terry's post from yesterday. She offers in place of my METAPHORICAL interpretation of the origin of dualism (as suggested in Genesis as a CONSEQUENCE of eating from the tree of knowledge) a more "scientific", or less metphorical, interpretation. There is nothing wrong that I can see with her evolutionary picture, i.e., that we evolved the capacity for dualistic perception IN ORDER TO empathize or oppress others (i.e., those who are not us). In this sense competition, she says (and cooperation we might add) is the primary selective force on brain evolution. Earlier I argued that social and physical survival both rest on the (evolved) human capacity to differentiate within the originally undifferentiated aesthetic continuum. My metaphor was intended to do no more than to suggest that the author(s) of Genesis might have been aware of how dualism, despite its indispensiablity for survival, resulted in a loss of "paradise." We see now that while our species continues to need dualism, some of us have also developed the capacity to transcend it, to live amphibiously in the fictional world of dualism and the actual world of nondualism.
Now, Terry, to your questions about my ideosyncratic use of "atman." I admit that the other day I went a bit over the top--with the help of two delightful vodka martini's (with silver skin cocktail onions)--regarding cosmic non-locality, i.e., that all is here and now, and our true nature as Atman. Now I must pay for such extravagances.
How to begin? First, cosmic non-locality must be seen from the perspective of the cosmos (excuse the absurdity) rather than from ours. From our perspective it would seem absurd to say that cosmic non-locality would permit "knowledge" of what is happening in the Andromeda Galaxy, because in addition to being THERE that reality is also HERE. But my true self (in the mystical sense of being the same as all) does know of everything everywhere, but this "knowing" is not of the nature of knowing as we think of it; I guess I wouldn't be too far off to call it knowing in the same sense that I "know", in the sense of experience, my body functions (not to be confused with having conceptual knowledge ABOUT them)--and I'm sober now. No "trance" is needed for that. At the same time, "I" the ego/self, have no knowledge at all of events in the Andromeda Galaxy. "I" (or ego/self) am the essence of separateness, but "atman", my true self, is the essence of togetherness. I'm sure that you, Frank, and Joe are (if you are as altruistic as I think you are) worried about my sanity right now, but stay with me.
"Atman", has been referred to as the Hindu version of soul. I personally do not relate to the notion of a separate soul for individuals. If I were asked if I think I have a soul, I might say--assuming I want to entertain the idea of soul at all--that if I do, it is the same soul that all beings have. And perhaps I might add that "I" do not HAVE a soul but that I AM (in the sense that "WE are") a single soul. The atman, as I conceive it, may be seen in this spirit. I do not know anything about its nature, in the same way that "I" do not know what's going on at Andromeda, but I can say that my true nature is that Unobservable Self that is producing and experiencing all the sensations and thoughts that "I" claim for myself. This can be described as the working of a grand soul, but in this perspective the atman is only a facet of the universal, or cosmic, soul (remember, I'm speaking metaphorically). When anyone is born and begins his life of experiences the universal Brahman (whether we think of it as universal intelligence or material cosmos) is reflected in that individual's atman. When that person dies his atman (which has always been merely a facet of Brahman) ceases as well, but like a river it returns to the ocean of which it was always a part (just like the specific emptiness in a sea shell becomes the universal emptiness when the shell is destroyed).
Now, one can also prefer to talk about atman materialistically, but remember, THIS is also metaphorical. I can say that when I experience sensations and thoughts they are actually produced not by "little me" the ego/self but by ALL that has conspired to generate such experiences: as I said before, my neurology, environmental pressure and temperature, optical physics, cultural conditioning, an infinity of conditions and events, including--since the cosmos is a unity--conditions and events on Andromeda. THEY are the real me; they are both Atman and Brahman. They are Brahman because they have no end, in terms of the infinity of Necessary Causation involved in any event, and they are Atman because they refer, perspectivistically, only to those sensations and thoughts experience by "me." Do you see how this version of reality, while expressed dualistically because that is the nature of language, is ultimately a non-dualistic model of Reality?
Good point Frank, and I see it clearly.
I am merely pointing out the contradiction in your statement:
" Ahhh, Terry.
SO MANY BELIEF SYSTEMS...so little time to challenge them all."
Which IS a contradiction in that Terry is putting forward Terry's own dualist belief system, a system in fact that is used by Terry as a tool, as an argument against other supposed belief systems.
One has to have a position in order to challenge other positions. If one says anything more then simply, "I do not know",
.for example, "I think you are wrong etc."
The responding question is, "Wrong in relation to what?
You (like us all) choose you fights Frank, and from what I can see what you choose is rarely if ever a challenge to any of Terry dozens upon dozens of posts advocating and deeply rooted in dualists beliefs.
I certainly appreciate and share to some extent your agnosticism, but the main folks here who are calling into question dualist beliefs are fresco, JLNobody and myself.
twyvel wrote:Good point Frank, and I see it clearly.
I am merely pointing out the contradiction in your statement:
" Ahhh, Terry.
SO MANY BELIEF SYSTEMS...so little time to challenge them all."
That was word play on the bumper sticker: So many Christians; so few lions.
I think Terry got it, because she's seen me quote it before. I apologize for being so subtle.
Quote:Which IS a contradiction in that Terry is putting forward Terry's own dualist belief system, a system in fact that is used by Terry as a tool, as an argument against other supposed belief systems.
I'll let Terry speak for herself on this, but I do not see things quite that way. She certainly is indicating the arguments for the dualistic system -- but does not seem to me to be insisting this is the only way things can be. As I read her activities here, she simply seems to be saying that you, Fresco, and JL do not seem to have enough evidence to be so insistent upon the non-dualist position.
I may be wrong, but I'll wait for her response.
Quote:One has to have a position in order to challenge other positions. If one says anything more then simply, "I do not know",
.for example, "I think you are wrong etc."
I certainly appreciate and share to some extent your agnosticism, but the main folks here who are calling into question dualist beliefs are fresco, JLNobody and myself.
I continue to resent having them called "beliefs." They certainly are not with me.
I DO NOT KNOW IF THE DUALISTS OR NON -DUALISTS ARE CLOSER TO THE TRUTH ABOUT WHAT REALITY ACTUALLY IS.
There is simply no way I have enough information to make a reasonable, meaningful guess about it.
THERE IS NO BELIEF INVOLVED THERE!
truth
God damn, this thread is the most fun one can have with his pants, or her dress, on!
JLN, Your dualist thoughts can get you into trouble.
truth
I'm sorry, but if anyone intends to comment on my response to Terry, please re-examine it. I've made some changes in it.
JLN, Just trying to make light of your statement, "God damn, this thread is the most fun one can have with his pants, or her dress, on!" Dualist. Get it?
truth
If Howard Stern can take it so can I.
Nice layout JLNobody
The irony, one of many dually speaking, is that I am bothJLNobodyTerry and others (no disrespect intended). The skin boundary does not delineate a boundary of self; Big mind, Brahman, unity consciousness, or universal self has no boundary; there is nothing outside of it(?), there is no >there< or >here<, or in-and-out, no opposites. Meaning there is no >autonomous< self, which I think is one of the points fresco is emphasizing in his links.
Here's an excerpt:
..."The behaviour of a system is something ascribed to it by someone observing it in interaction with its environment. Hence behaviour is not something that is 'in' a system, and to refer to how a system relates to its environment whilst trying to understand it as an autonomous entity violates that very notion of autonomy...."[/i]
Why is it that most of us enjoy sitting at a table at an outside restaurant/cafe/bar as we watch "the world go by?" Dualism?
c.i.
Doesn't that "enjoyment" come from the sense of "detachment" as an "transcendental observer" ?
As we speak we are yet
another step "on" as we observe
that observation event in our minds eye.....now take another step and observe the "we".....etc etc....and the "self" becomes less and less defined.....
twyvel,
Yes that excerpt, though out of its formal context of "systems theory" does epitomize the "illusion of self" from a full nondual perspective. The chain of reasoning offered to c.i. is a "gentler approach" such as the one taken by esoteric writers (like Gurdjieff) whose starting point is the observation of "fragmented self". (...there goes the world and each person is a "me" with its internal conversations and ephemeral appointments hurrying by.....)The quest for the "unitary self" ends of course with the dissipation of "self".
...and where has the "I" gone in Frank's "I do not know".... :wink:
