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

@IRFRANK,

I don't know?
Who's Leonard?

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<lag>

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watched this the other day. probably not all that relevant to this thread, but it kept making me think of it. worth a watch anyhoo.

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@MattDavis,

MattDavis wrote:

Quote:
science and Buddhism - who'd have thought it!

Lots of people think it.
There has been a huge trend in popular science books to link modern scientific paradigms to Buddhist and other esoteric enlightenment traditions.
You might even like Godel Escher Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. A favorite of mine, but he uses a dialectic strategy very similar to the ones used traditionally by Buddhists teachers. A dialectic, like Socrates.

I know exactly what you mean and I was just being 'modest' on behalf of Buddhism. The 'dialectic' approach works well!

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@Berty McJock,

Thanks Berty, 'all' contributions are welcome.. I'll watch it later...

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@igm,

sweet. first 20 mins are most relevant, but the whole thing is interesting, if debatable. but then...that's the point innit! Razz

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@igm,

The 'holographic universe'-type ideas have a direct correlation with how information should be 'rightly' or 'wrongly' treated.
Can 'information' be quantized (thought of as packets)?
This is similar to the distinctions made in mathematics between different types of infinity. The "counting type of numbers" or the "numbers that can take any value in between the counting numbers".
Integers vs. Reals
Discrete vs. Continuous

You might look at the work of Georg Cantor regarding these "types of infinity".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor
Here are the "types".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor

Cantor had to smack up against philosophy himself, back in his day.

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@MattDavis,

Quote:

You might look at the work of Georg Cantor regarding these "types of infinity".

Matt, judging from the movement-acceleration thread, there are also different types of zero

The one discussed there discusses one expressing the delay between the acceleration of a stationary object and its movement

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@MattDavis,

MattDavis wrote:

The 'holographic universe'-type ideas have a direct correlation with how information should be 'rightly' or 'wrongly' treated.
Can 'information' be quantized (thought of as packets)?
This is similar to the distinctions made in mathematics between different types of infinity. The "counting type of numbers" or the "numbers that can take any value in between the counting numbers".
Integers vs. Reals
Discrete vs. Continuous

You might look at the work of Georg Cantor regarding these "types of infinity".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor
Here are the "types".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor

Cantor had to smack up against philosophy himself, back in his day.

Thanks Matt, I'll take a look; I am aware of the debate around 'infinities' but I'll take another look and refresh my old recollections about them and the debate about 'types'...

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I wonder sometimes if there is a correlation between Buddhist meditative equipoise and quantum superposition... the mind of a Buddha plugged into all possibilities at the same time and only when another person asks a question of the Buddha or any enlightened being does that meditation then 'collapse' into the appropriate answer.

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@dalehileman,

There are different types of zero.
There is the infinitesimal (as in calculus).
The infinitesimal actually requires a sort of "intuition" to direct how it should be treated especially with regards to arithmetic division.
In a way calculus believes in a division by "zero".
Again an intimate connection between different ways of viewing things, discrete or continuous.
You might also look to Plank's constant if you want some of my reasons for favoring the discrete.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck_constant

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prat%C4%ABtyasamutp%C4%81da

The principle of dependent origination also applies to the concept of no-self (anatman).[k] The concept of no-self or anatman or emptiness of self is that it is not possible to identify an independent, inherently existing self; that the self only exists in dependence upon causes and conditions. This theory can be broken down as follows:[22]

If you look for the self within the body, you can not find it there, since the body itself is dependent upon its parts.

If you look for the self within the mind, you can not find it there, since the mind can only be said to exist in relation to external objects; therefore the mind is also dependent upon causes and conditions outside of itself.
Hence, since the self can not be said to exist within the body or mind, it is said to be "empty of inherent existence".

Emptiness (sunyata)

Main article: Sunyata

In the Mahayana tradition, the principle of pratītyasamutpāda is said to complement the concept of emptiness (sunyata). It is said that because all things arise in dependence upon causes and conditions, they are empty of inherent existence.[l]

A classic expression of this relationship was provided by the renowned Indian scholar Nagarjuna in the twenty-fourth chapter of his Treatise on the Middle Way; Nagarjuna stated:[24]

Whatever arises dependently
Is explained as empty.
Thus dependent attribution
Is the middle way.
Since there is nothing whatever
That is not dependently existent,
For that reason there is nothing
Whatsoever that is not empty.

Geshe Sonam Rinchen explains the above quote as follows: "Here Nagarjuna states the Madhyamika or middle way position. Everything that exists does so dependently and everything that is dependently existent necessarily lacks independent objective existence."[24]

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@igm,

That quantum mechanical "collapsing the wave" thing you are alluding to is not the only interpretation going right now for understanding quantum effects.
It is a very popular one though.
To pull a Fresco on you for a minute, ponder what quantum means. It is an extension of a concept as old as atomism (6th century BC in "the East", 5th century BC in "the West").

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@MattDavis,

url typo

MattDavis wrote:

You might look at the work of Georg Cantor regarding these "types of infinity".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor
Here are the "types".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Cantor

HERE are the "types":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleph_number

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@igm,

igm wrote:

Everything that exists does so dependently and everything that is dependently existent necessarily lacks independent objective existence.

This is an assertion however.
It does not necessarily follow that if something has some dependence on other things, it must therefore have no objective existence.
Either the assertion is being made that all things are completely dependent,
Or the assertion is being made that some dependence implies total dependence.

Not to knock assertions. I think some assumptions are necessary to all "knowledge". I just want to clarify what those assumptions are.

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@MattDavis,

MattDavis wrote:

igm wrote:
Everything that exists does so dependently and everything that is dependently existent necessarily lacks independent objective existence.

This is an assertion however.
It does not necessarily follow that if something has some dependence on other things, it must therefore have no objective existence.
Either the assertion is being made that all things are completely dependent,
Or the assertion is being made that some dependence implies total dependence.

Not to knock assertions. I think some assumptions are necessary to all "knowledge". I just want to clarify what those assumptions are.

Isn't it just saying things (each phenomenon) is dependent and so it necessarily follows then that none can be independent and therefore cannot 'exist' independently? The 'thing in itself' cannot be found 'outside' because it is always dependent on the observer for its appearance and is therefore a part of dependent phenomena. How could we possibly find an 'independent' phenomenon?

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@igm,

igm wrote:

MattDavis wrote:

igm wrote:
Everything that exists does so dependently and everything that is dependently existent necessarily lacks independent objective existence.

This is an assertion however.
It does not necessarily follow that if something has some dependence on other things, it must therefore have no objective existence.
Either the assertion is being made that all things are completely dependent,
Or the assertion is being made that some dependence implies total dependence.

Not to knock assertions. I think some assumptions are necessary to all "knowledge". I just want to clarify what those assumptions are.

Isn't it just saying things (each phenomenon) is dependent and so it necessarily follows then that none can be independent and therefore cannot 'exist' independently? The 'thing in itself' cannot be found 'outside' because it is always dependent on the observer for its appearance and is therefore a part of dependent phenomena. How could we possibly find an 'independent' phenomenon?

Yes it is saying either,

Assumption A wrote:

ALL "things" = "phenomena"

(assumption)
-or-

Assumption B wrote:

We see that "things" have some dependence on other "things", therefore all "things" are totally dependent on other "things".

(assumption)

The statement must assert either A or B or (A and B).
The statement is not 'rational' without at least one of those assumptions.

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@igm,

Frank, you confessed that you do not know the nature of Reality. The buddhist perspective has it that you actually DO. Indeed, you do in the sense that you ARE Reality. You may not know what it is in a universally acceptable THEORETICAL way. But there is no immediate obstacle to your "enlightened" oneness with it. What separates you from it is the mediation of ideas . Moreover, it is misleading to say, as you did, that after much meditation "truths" are revealed. No ideas come to the meditator. At most he or she might be receptive to otherwise unfanthomable ideas. What is received by means of meditation is an openness to experience. Something like attaining an ear for music, but not a theoretical grasp of music theory.

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@MattDavis,

Yes Matt, I take your point... refer to the 'two truths' aspect of the Buddha's teachings. What I should always say is: show me an 'independent phenomenon' or 'thing' or how there could be one? I'll remain open-minded until you show me there is one. This state of mind 'is meditation' and Buddha's engage in conventional truth 'only' when they can help others because their asking pulls one possible conventional answer from the Buddha's meditation so-to-speak. The ultimate truth is the experience of remaining 'without a view' which is defined in Buddhism as 'not' a view in itself but the mere absence of a view.

We do however have a 'conventional' understanding of how you could not show that a phenomenon or a thing could be shown to be 'independent' as far as conventional truth is able to understand such things.

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@MattDavis,

Quote:

Not to knock assertions. I think some assumptions are necessary to all "knowledge". I just want to clarify what those assumptions are.

Excellent point.

I think something else has to be mentioned here:

The greatest impediment to obtaining knowledge...often is the consideration that the knowledge already is in hand, and the any investigation being done is only interested in "facts" or "other considerations" that bolster the supposed knowledge. (Or even in "facts" that seem to "disprove" the investigated supposition...a concept way too difficult to explain here.)

The Christians, for instance, already "know" there is a god...and they already "know" what the god expects of them...what offends the god and what pleases the god.

Strong atheists already "know" there are no gods.

Buddhists already "know" the stuff that is being sold in this thread.

Every generation has supposed it already "knows" most of the essential truths of REALITY.

Most has been shown to be nonsense.

I suspect we "know" a hell of a lot less than we think we know. And I think any search we claim to be doing of what actually IS...might be aided by more acknowledgement of the "I do not know" factor.

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

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