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

I think you're talking about something else.

What I am saying, JL, is that if we learn why atheists and non-dualists and the like are afraid to simply leave it at "I do not know"...rather than asserting that their guesses (nothing wrong with guesses) are most likely correct...

...we will make inroads into why theists do that same thing.

REALITY!

WHAT REALLY IS!

Heavy stuff...and so many are afraid to simply acknowledge that they do not know. They want instead to present blind guesses as reasonable.

And here...they even consider the acknowledgement of "not knowing" to be a failure of some kind.

That is what I am saying, JL.

What are you saying?

How about you, ci?

What are you saying?

I've already made my position clear. I'm not here to do battle with your concept on gods or reality.

Well Frank help me out here I am a little bewildered...from two, either you believe or know, you do not know...

...in the first case if you believe it, because you may know and not be certain of what you know (there's a distinction between knowledge and certainty), then you are no better then us, and you are just playing another silly hide and seek guess game to see if you can get away with it...

...but if you do know it with certainty, then you admittedly and contradictorily know something, thus you only obscurely imply you do not know some things but not that you absolutely do not know...

....in which case you ought to clarify the special pleading regarding your state of knowledge and retreat from your absolute skepticism as you can't justify it...

...interestingly it is amusing that the image your portraying to me right know is precisely one of someone far more certain than any other guy in this thread...how about that ?

PS - Perhaps you equivocally believe you can access all that you might know or not know instantly, so that you can decide that you do simply not know, but then you wouldn't be sure of not knowing either...you would rather assume that you are not certain whether you know or not know something, which is the point of my silly yet pertinent intervention here...

Who did I quote some time back on one of these threads? : Truth is what I can get away with? Does that sound like Frank?

Hell it does ! Don't get me wrong I have a special appreciation for Frank stubbornness...precisely because I like him I tend to provoke him time to time...

Those who assume this thread is about "mystical revelation" should take note of this.
Writers like Quine and Derrida, can hardly be called "mystical" yet they have reached conclusions about the "nature of language", including our use of the words "know" and "is", which are clearly holistic in character. In short, since language clearly does not represent "reality", but is a social activity involved in the construction what we call "reality" it is ridiculous to apply the word "know" to such conclusions. Those conclusions are simply self-evident as emergent aspects of rigorous semantic analysis. And those who blatently are unable or unwilling to follow such analysis are not merely "sceptics", they are running their ignorance up the flagpole and expecting others to salute it.

Fil...I suspect you are not bewildered. I suspect you are trying to mock someone for saying "I do not know the true nature of REALITY."

I understand. For some people...acknowledging they do not know something is very difficult.

And I understand that people like you must think up things like "How do you know you do not know"...because to you folk, saying "I do not know the true nature of REALITY" has to equate to "I do not know my name."

Have fun with that.

Fresco...

...consult one of those people on your endless stream of authorities to whom you appeal...

...and come up with the answer to my questions to you:

What is the true nature of REALITY?

What are you sure we must include...what are you sure must be excluded?

How have you examined reality and come to the conclusion that you don't know its true nature, Frank?

I have ways of examining reality which give me confidence that it is beyond elaboration.

If you have not examined reality but have stumbled across a single 'stock' answer to every question on the subject then you have... blind faith in your 'guess' that you don't know unless you can explain how you don't?

Religious people are accused of having blind faith and if you can't explain how you've come to the conclusion that you don't know what the true nature of reality is, then you are the same as them; your guess is just blind faith.

So, Frank:

How have you examined reality and come to the conclusion that you don't know its true nature?

...oooh but you see I would argue that there is a difference between knowledge, a state of affairs, and its linguistic representation...one thing is the symbolic concept of knowledge and quite another knowing...the concept is still a summary, a wrapped up symbolic representation of the thing itself...functional resolve is knowing absolute knowledge quite another...when we address the impossibility of the second as if we were referring to the first we are muddling the waters...

When the functional resolve is in place, knowing is not relative, as it works within the pre established parameters...the only fundamental difference between reality and its representations is complexity...otherwise the language of reality and our own language are similar in structure. They obey the same principles and the same mathematical formula...truth as representation addresses the formalization of functional resolve, itself a valid state of affairs.

So your statement 'I don't know' is on the road to nothingness. There is nothing to know, therefore I don't know.

And removing that complexity is a way to gain understanding. Meditation is the skill that allows one to do that. If one sees a beautiful painting and is not willing to learn how to paint, that doesn't mean the painting doesn't exist or is not beautiful.

Frank is confused about who he is - himself. All the experiences and activities he participated in were of a complete stranger. He never decides what to do, what his goals are, and how he manages his daily life. His reality doesn't exist. He just doesn't know!

Yes, but more, a beautiful painting requires knowing the ability of making beautiful things, even if not necessarily awareness of what beauty is as an absolute concept...painting beautifully requires knowing making beauty, and not awareness of what beauty is...functional resolve is knowing the necessary stuff to factually achieve a given goal...its representation as truth addresses that factual specific functionality rather then the ideal all encompassing absolute resolve that only reality itself as a whole can accomplish...reality cannot be computed other then by itself...no sub set within reality can ever recreate or re compute reality and simultaneously being a sub part of reality...although and this is important, I am thinking of holograms and fractals here, sometimes the difference is very very small...a simple matter of resolution...

Irrelevant in the case where representation has been specifically excluded !

Not when such representations may achieve critical mass for objective functional and practical goals...the resolution (depth) of an explanation must only match its function to be absolutely truthful ! (functionally true)
More resolution, in the light of the required being less, might as well be dismissed as background "noise"...

Understand, and I did confuse recognizing beauty and creating it. But I do think that sometimes we get so involved in the mechanisms we lose the awareness.