Inflate or destroy self?

@Fil Albuquerque,

Nope. Poor spelling but I stick to the meaning. Fresco basically tells me my words are meaningless and his meaningful, inside his paradigm. That's a very facile, comfortable take. It's the sophist's way of sutting his ears.

Irrespective of whether you accept or reject dualism, you should be able to consider it on its own merit and review whether it's internally consistent or not.

My take on the issue, as you know, is that information and matter are two sides of the same coin, two aspects of the same reality.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

What a lot of fuss about my description of some widely held views ! Anybody would think I was trying to peddle snake oil !

1 Reply

@fresco,

...oh but you know you are... Laughing

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@Olivier5,

Mystics are not monists in the philosoophical sense. They say, "Not two and not one." As I understand them, Reality is "unitary" more in the sense of a dynamic "system" of relationships rather than some kind of monolith. But for the functional needs of everyday life (in contrast to the goals of contemporary physics) ordinary thought rests tacitly upon dualistic presuppositions.

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

Mystics are not monists in the philosoophical sense. They say, "Not two and not one."

Many mystics have been dualist, so there's no uniformity among them.

Quote:

Reality is "unitary" more in the sense of a dynamic "system" of relationships rather than some kind of monolith.

My take too, but in such a scheme, selves can very well be elements of the system. There's no need to deny the self-evident notion that selves exist. And contemporary physics have nothing to say about it, it's not their domain. Biology is much more involved in the issue.

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Non-duality is a position which counters dualism like atheism counters theism. It resists labelling perhaps due to its transcendence of language. (see Rorty's attack on labelling in "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature for more on this). It does not purport to be "a theory" or "a substrate" (see Wittgensteins attack on "theory") rather, it is deconstructive of all such claims, leaving in its wake an experiential quiescence in which the phrenetically active "self" has been seen as some persistant yet lesser cognitive ephinonomenon.

Certainly used lots of words to say, "We make a guess...and stick to it."

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@Frank Apisa,

Have you ever done any meditating ? Training?

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@fresco,

Quote:

Frank doesn't know, so nobody knows !]

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

"Frank acknowledges when he doesn't know...not everybody does!"

No, actually you often make a point that others do not know.

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@Frank Apisa,

Come on, Frank, it was an exceptionally well put statement. "Experiential quiescence" is a great synonym for the commonly experienced meditative state of samadhi.
From my epiphenomenon to your epiphenomenon, have a nice evening. Cool

.

1 Reply

@Olivier5,

Olivier, I would agree that there is some diversity among mystics, but there is also considerable uniformity--at least among those I would credit with the identity of mystic (a much abused word). What they all share is an awareness of the interconnection and co-origination of all things, especially their own unity with their experienced environment.

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@JLNobody,

Indeed. What that uniformity consists of is recognition of the superficial status of "ordinary self". It seems to me that there is then an ontological bifurcation in the views of mystics between those that advocate that this recognition is by a "higher self" in a progress towards "enlightenment", and those that advocate that "self dissipation" is is sufficient in itself as the "enlightened state".

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@IRFRANK,

IRFRANK wrote:

Have you ever done any meditating ? Training?

I've done some meditating.

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@IRFRANK,

IRFRANK wrote:

Quote:
"Frank acknowledges when he doesn't know...not everybody does!"

No, actually you often make a point that others do not know.

No I do not, Frank. All I can do is to guess about what other know or do not know.

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Come on, Frank, it was an exceptionally well put statement. "Experiential quiescence" is a great synonym for the commonly experienced meditative state of samadhi.
From my epiphenomenon to your epiphenomenon, have a nice evening. .

What is there about the air of the subcontinent that causes people to think the way they do...and to be able to infect others so easily?

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@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Indeed. What that uniformity consists of is recognition of the superficial status of "ordinary self". It seems to me that there is then an ontological bifurcation in the views of mystics between those that advocate that this recognition is by a "higher self" in a progress towards "enlightenment", and those that advocate that "self dissipation" is is sufficient in itself as the "enlightened state".

No guessing there, right. They have to be correct about that?

C'mon!

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@Frank Apisa,

A meaningless question from one who has a vested interest in the maintenance of a "self " that is hooked on dichotomous labels like "right" versus "wrong" and "know" versus "guess". Your persistent attempted application of such labelling is equivalent to the attempted application of the soccer "offside rule" to golf.

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@JLNobody,

I don't know where you got that idea but it doesn't match the classic definition of mystic, i.e. a person trying to get closer and closer to God. Such mystics usually are dualistic, considering that the soul is important but the body and all material things aren't. They don't search unity with their environment; rather they try to part with it so as to search unity with God.

1 Reply

@fresco,

A meaningless statement from one who has a vested interest in the destruction of selves, hooked on dichotomous labels like "paradigm" vs. "theory" or "dual" vs. "non-dual". Your persistent attempted application of such labelling is equivalent to the attempted application of the soccer "offside rule" to golf.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

What that uniformity consists of is recognition of the superficial status of "ordinary self".

Much of what we are discussing here has to do with the definition of 'self'. I suspect that our different definitions lead to different conclusions. What exactly is 'it'. My inability to express my understanding keeps me from explaining much of what I believe. But, I do understand the statement above in that I can see the self as a definition and perhaps too much effort can go into 'creating' that definition. I defer to 'Occum's razor' and come to the conclusion that too much is made of it (creating a God, etc.) and 'I' really am just the sum of my experiences. Do I absolutely KNOW that? In this context I'm not really sure what KNOW means. Proving something in a physical sense does not apply to this question.

1 Reply

Inflate or destroy self?

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