Where is the self? How can dualism stand if it's just a fiction?

Interesting observations... thanks for sharing.

Why thank you Ig, it's not everyday…...

Actually there were four q's but I can understand how you might have overlooked them or considered them merely irrelevant as I used no interrogatory and besides they constitute no major issue

Been fun

lol

you lot STILL at it???

don't know if anyone saw, but i posted a thought that occurred to me on the atheist vs. believer thread:

"if buddha "taught" these things, then nothing says he "knew" anything. maybe he only made such assertions as a way of getting poeple to think about it.

the best way to teach these things is to get people to try to work it out for themselves. whether or not it can be answered is by the by, it's the thought process that matters."

i'd say given how much you're debating it, it worked

Not nearly big enough!

No, you misunderstand. I was only referring to your first post I haven't got to the one where you ask those questions.. If you check you'll see 'no replies' to that post.... yet. I'll get back to you on those questions when I get to that post. I apologise for the misunderstanding... I can see how you could have come to the conclusion that I’d overlooked your questions.

If you aim to discus the virtues or challenges to non-dualism, do you think that it serves much to insert "Buddha said" throughout your posts?
I think this just clouds the issues.
If you want to discuss this why appeal to authority, especially an authority that those participating in the discussion to not recognize as having authority?

Is your intention to discuss non-dualism, or to advance a belief in Buddha as an authority?

good question but u dont have the answer, bc u belong to evil life so ur meaning to use a concept for smthg else that is why u r thoughts are pointin dualism

while also indirectly this prove that buddha wasnt true, so meaning mostly the concept of superiority being the source of everything so anything reality accordin to buddha is superior while being nothing himself to

truth is superiority but then existing superiority is positive constancy which constancy is always free

so of course selves exist, the limited freedom senses, limited according to their positive wills
why a self is limited prove that there is no god in truth

a self must b bc since truth is absolute superiority then existing superiority must b absolute freedom space results so individual selves

this is how true self never define himself bc he knows being self for absolute ways and not that it is really him while knowin him being more an opening to continuous superiority ends

were you that guy sitting behind me on the bus?

Two souls were floating up to heaven, on their way they met two eagles. They were surprised to see living creatures so soon after having expired, so they said, 'Ah Eagles.'

The eagles were too polite to reply.

The subject is simply: I, me, myself, self, Id, ego, the perceiver of the perceived, The one who says ‘I am conscious of this’, ‘the thinker of thoughts’, maybe the ‘homunculus’.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus#Modern_science

Homunculus argument
The homunculus argument accounts for a phenomenon in terms of the very phenomenon that it is supposed to explain (Richard Gregory, 1987). Homunculus arguments are always fallacious, as they are circular. In the psychology and philosophy of mind 'homunculus arguments' are useful for detecting where theories of mind fail or are incomplete.

Homunculus arguments are common in the theory of vision. Imagine a person watching a movie. They see the images as something separate from themselves, projected on the screen. How is this done? A simple theory might propose that the light from the screen forms an image on the retinae in the eyes and something in the brain looks at these as if they are the screen. The homunculus argument shows this is not a full explanation because all that has been done is to place an entire person, or homunculus, behind the eye that gazes at the retinae. A more sophisticated argument might propose that the images on the retinae are transferred to the visual cortex where it is scanned. Again this cannot be a full explanation because all that has been done is to place a little person in the brain behind the cortex. In the theory of vision the homunculus argument invalidates theories that do not explain 'projection', the experience that the viewing point is separate from the things that are seen (adapted from Gregory, 1987; 1990).

How a homunculus theory of mind argument might be visualised
"According to the legend, whenever an agent does anything intelligently, their act is preceded and steered by another internal act of considering a regulative proposition appropriate to their practical problem. . . . Must we then say that for the agent's . . . reflections how to act to be intelligent they must first reflect how best to reflect how to act? The endlessness of this implied regress shows that the application of the appropriateness does not entail the occurrence of a process of considering this criterion." Ryle 1949.
Ryle's theory is that intelligent acts cannot be a property of an inner being or mind, if such a thing were to exist.

The homunculus argument and the regress argument are often considered to be the same, but this is not quite the case. The homunculus argument says that if there is a need for a 'little man' to complete a theory then the theory is false or incomplete. The regress argument says that an intelligent agent would need to think before it could have a thought.

But I’d say that, me, myself, I and self is fine for our purposes.



The things that the subject believes is not the self (‘is not me’ so-to-speak). E.g. My body, my thoughts, my memories, my perceptions, my emotions, my sense experience, my concepts, my possessions etc. then people, places, things, other sentient beings etc…


Don’t we all tend to see the world as ‘me’ here and everything else is ‘not me’. It’s the way we all see the world when we don’t critically examine our belief in this dualistic notion.

Also this might help:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_a_subject_object_dichotomy

What is a subject object dichotomy?

Answer:
It is not grammar or vocabulary. It is a philosophical reference.
The dichotomy is the surrounding view of self that we act out of. It is often learned with language and not taught [like the alphabet and numbers are taught] in early life through language and the forming of distinctions.
The Subject/Object dichotomy is related mostly to the Cartesian model of a 'self'. We can be both the subject that we observe, and the object doing the observing. But it goes beyond that into how we view the world we are in.

Hope this helps!


The Buddha taught for 45 years after his enlightenment. If one has found a way to be happy that doesn’t depend on anything other than being profoundly ‘open’ then if someone wants to try to follow that path then if they ask tell them how one can do it. Other ways are temporary and may fail before they are realized.

So that is what loving kindness and compassion is wishing all others have happiness and the causes of happiness and wishing them to be free from suffering and the causes of suffering and telling how one did it should they wish to follow the same path. In short it gives enlightened beings something useful to do. They don’t need anything else they’ve found unconditional happiness… is there anything more to life than that… that’s a personal choice.

It might be a bit cloudy but I'm a Buddhist and one of the 'tags' says Buddhism but there are plenty of free-form words from me I believe. I don't think it's too cloudy. If you want to ask me a question or give your views I'm happy to not appear to be 'appealing to authority'. Thanks for your input... hope you can still contribute.

Wise words... Berty!

Interesting Frank how we differ, however slightly. If the soul is everything about oneself except the body, then whether or not it exists depends on one's def of "existence"

…….lying somewhere along the scale of abstraction with the rock near the concrete end and God near the other, transcendental, end, soul bears just to the left of the latter. Thus whether it exists depends upon just where you draw that line

dalehileman wrote:

Just what is the subject

Well then Ig you can see how the Average Clod (me), someone very literal, could be confused. "Subject," for instance could be mistaken as dualism and "object" for the self. Likewise "self" could refer to (a) the body, (b) the soul, or both (the homunculus?)


….which however thanks for explaining though to me, just a whole lot of semantics (circular?)

dalehileman wrote:

What is the object

Speaking of semantics--You have to forgive the Typical Blockhead (me), Ig, but the way you have constructed that sentence seems to invite about 40 different interpretations…..all having to do with semantics and grammar

For instance it raises the q whether for purposes of argument whether the body belongs to the self, the "not self" or to some third category that's neither; so you've introduced a kind of "trialism"

dalehileman wrote:

As for dualism, who was it that asserted it's correct (can you provide a posting no.) and what did he mean

Of course, it's the practical approach required for everyday communication

Yes, ignoring the body for the time being, I agree the idea is dualistic and that dualism falls apart in many ways

Yet just as the soul and body are a dualistic notion so is the notion of dualism v unity, both concepts useful for communication but not as absolutes

Yes Ig, far beyond, and thank you for your patience. Extending the dichotomy precisely describers the pantheism to which I personally adhere, the trichotomy becoming an infiniochotomy, the One, Her

dalehileman wrote:


I'm all for kindness and stuff like that but isn't it OT, doesn't the former somewhat diverge


Sorry Ig but here's where you and I part drastically. Christian, Buddhist, or Porker, the "good" is almost purely a relative idea


"Almost" according to the maxim that nothing is entirely anything…….

All participants please ignore my foregoing posting, which suffers from precisely the same sort of semantic circularism I've described

Notice the tag 'Who cares' has been added to the type of forums (as you know the tags are at the top of the page)? I sometimes wondered if Set is a 'backroom boy'. Or perhaps anyone can do this? I have no idea. Anyway it's not a problem.

Back to the topic:

I did question 'Where is the self?'

It seems to me. The need to protect ourselves and privilege our self over others leads to e.g. murder, rape, war, greed, etc. so it’s not something abstract. This belief ‘I and mine’ and the belief in ‘other’… does harm.

How can we be confident that if we look for the self we won’t find one? That it is just a useful communication tool and under critical examination appears to be a figment of the imagination.

The self seems to me to require three fundamental characteristic, it needs to be: singular, permanent and autonomous. Anyone disagree? What would the individual ‘I’ be if it didn’t have these characteristics?

Once more I am prompted to quote G.I.Gurdjieff on "Man's major misconception"...



Gurdjieff was an esotericist in the first half of the 20th century with many intellectual followers including Frank Lloyd Wright and Katherine Mansfield.
His system of "work on self observation" still flourishes both under his name and in offshoot organizations such as the globally ubiquitous " School of Practical Philosophy". The aim is to "awaken to higher states of consciousness" in which an enlightened "permanent I" can be realized.

Anonymity within anonymity

Fres has a good point after all, we're continually changing, for better or worse, in almost random fashion

If you really want to know the perpetrator, it is Sloan.


I never got much into eastern mysticism, but here is something that stuck with me after reading The Vimalakirti Sutra translated by Burton Watson (chapter 9) which deals with the subject of “The Dharma-Door of Nonduality".

In this Sutra some great Bodhisattvas take a shot at it and finally Manjushri says:

“Manjusri replied, “Good sirs, you have all spoken well. Nevertheless, all your explanations are themselves dualistic. To know no one teaching, to express nothing, to say nothing, to explain nothing, to announce nothing, to indicate nothing, and to designate nothing – that is the entrance into non-duality.”
Then the crown prince Manjusri said to the Licchavi Vimalakirti, “We have all given our own teachings, noble sir. Now, may you elucidate the teaching of the entrance into the principle of non-duality!”
Thereupon, the Licchavi Vimalakirti kept his silence, saying nothing at all.
The crown prince Manjusri applauded the Licchavi Vimalakirti: “Excellent! Excellent, noble sir! This is indeed the entrance into the non-duality of the bodhisattvas. Here there is no use for syllables, sounds, and ideas.”


I personally think there is a subject/object duality. Non-Duality it seems to be a slippery slope because this idea seems to make a reference without a referent. My general thoughts here on the above quote: Is silence an outer expression of fear of getting it wrong? Is silence a outer expression of disbelief that people have been able to realize these things, an expression of cynicism? If silence is the answer then do we end up with the duality of silence and non-silence, one enlightened the other deluded?