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

What are your thoughts on that?

Manjushri says:……….all your explanations are themselves dualistic.

…..useful for communication but not worth going to war over etc…

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?

Thus whether it exists depends upon just where you draw that line

Re: igm (Post 5248393)
Quote:
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"...

Quote:
Man has no individual I. But there are, instead, hundreds and thousands of separate small "I"s, very often entirely unknown to one another, never coming into contact, or, on the contrary, hostile to each other, mutually exclusive and incompatible. Each minute, each moment, man is saying or thinking, "I". And each time his I is different. just now it was a thought, now it is a desire, now a sensation, now another thought, and so on, endlessly. Man is a plurality. Man's name is legion.


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.

trying so hard to follow this, but i'm a bit confused.

is this about the difference between a singular conscious entity and the collective conscious? or have i totally misunderstood?

The average person conceives of him/herself as being singular, permanent and autonomous e.g. ‘I’ is a singular pronoun; Also e.g. I was born, I am alive now, I will die someday (we think we are permanent in this sense without critical examination); e.g. I decide what to think, I decide where to go, what to do, when to do it and why I should do it i.e. we think we are autonomous.

But aren't all perceptions dualistic? Sights, sounds, tastes, smells, touch and thoughts presumes a perceiver and the perceived.

anyone, and about self/ego etc. i should google it really, but i can't pull myself away from A2K lol. ignore me.

i only ask because i've read (admittedly not enough, and without the maths) about the collective conscious in quantum theory stuff i've read. which to me questions the notion of "me" if i am part of "us".

is this thread along those lines? or am i waaaaay off?

If you are attempting unity,

isn't 'non-duality' a clumsy attempt at unity?

It is seems to be a unity via the sense spheres rather than unity via wisdom & understanding.

But aren't all perceptions dualistic? Sights, sounds, tastes, smells, touch and thoughts presumes a perceiver and the perceived.

After reading, it seems Nietzsche understood only in terms of his own cultural situation and historical orientation and was very close
to some basic doctrines found in Buddhism, but failed to transcend rationality to become enlightened and reach Nirvana. Interestingly, I wasn't aware that Buddhism lies at the center of any attempt to understand Nietzsche's thought in its entirety. This theoretical fictionalist view of the self by Nietzsche stands in conflict with the conception of the self that seems presupposed by his practical philosophy. To tell you the truth, I am mystified by the problem at hand. So then what explains the existence of the experience of willing if it is a fiction that plays no causal role in the production of action?