No Reality Outside Our Own Existence

Craven,

"Belief" is confidence in expected outcomes of the relationship. I believe my car is in the path. (I havn't looked yet but I am predicting car images if I do) . It is related to constructs like "time", "space" and "lifespans" I do not say I "believe in nonduality" it is a position from which my attitude to belief makes sense. I reject "theism" from what I hold to be this "higher" vantage point - that it is a concept with no expected outcomes for my relationship with it.
It has no direct impact on my behaviour, but it does have indirect impact via its acceptance by significant others.

Perhaps yet another clarification of my simple question is in order.

I wasn't really asking for discussions about the nature of belief, truth and such.

I'm asking a simple question about the process through which you vet concepts. Surely you operate with a process through which you evaluate concepts.

For example, if I were to say that I have 300 testicles your evaluation of this claim would be a process through which the claim's merit is accessed to give it the consideration that it is due.

Assuming you do not treat all concepts equally (a safe assumption given that you do not) you have processes through which you delienate them.

Through what means do you do so with concepts as they relate to dualism?

Note: The question is not about the nature of "means".

"New" concepts are evaluated by virtue of "goodness of fit" with old. Concepts must have minimal "fit" to be intelligible at all. The minimal fit sets up expectancies or "perceptual set" which actively seeks stimuli to constitute "evidence". Evidence is not "out there" or "neutral".

fresco,

Ok, you got as far as gleaning "evidence" but I fear the detour up to that point might have caused you to stop prematurely.

I'm not sure that you want to answer my repeated question at all but if so:

What criteria do you use to evaluate said evidence?

If anyone else would like to give their answers about the manner through which they accessed the merit of their position on dualism I would welcome it.

NB The problem with hypothetical scenarios is that they are contrived to elicit a response within context A (the discussion) without specifying the boundaries of context B (the situation). I have recently found out for example that both men and women can have multiple breasts. The "value" of this piece of "information" is bounded by THIS discussion, not the life situation from which it arose.

crossed you in the post

The seeking of "evidence" is the desire to firm up the confidence level. What constitutes evidence is relative to particular observers and their threholds of acceptibility which may involve unspecifiable degrees of context. (For depth see Green and Swets "Signal Detection Theory" which discusses the problem of "false positives" in signal plus noise envionments.The theory implies an interaction of central and peripheral neural processes There was an attempted extension by Morton to "signal recognition" in running speech where contextual expectancies lowered thresholds progressively over the reception period)

So, in short, you are saying that you do not think you can answer the question?

I have answered the question nondualistically by implying that "evidence" and "context" are inextricably linked. Your request for "specification" implies a dualistic segmentation or boundary.

I am prepared to say that particular contexts CAN be specified for "evidence" e.g. within a legal process but that such boundaries depend on somewhat arbitrary decision procedures on what to do with the accused. i.e. functionality is the key.

So you evaluated the merit of the nondualistic position itself "nondualistically"?

No, I've pointed out the pitfalls of dualism (false positives, arbitrary decisions etc). If you are happy with those problems so be it !

You may believe you have a valid argument that nondualism is vacuous from a "common sense" point of view and that "experiential claims" for its superiority are unacceptable. The only answer to that is "suck it and see".

False positives and arbitrary decisions are not exclusive to dualism. Nondualism has its share as well.



I'm not trying to make any arguments about the validity of nondualism at the moment. I am trying to get you to answer a question about the vetting of concepts and how nondualism got past this process.

If you are saying you adopted it through a "suck it and see" process, then I suppose that's part of the answer. I guess the second part would be "fresco saw that it was good and on the seventh day he rested." ;-)

And to end the loop, I'll not inquire as to the process through which you evaluated said sight.

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If anyone else from the nondualist camp would like to share how they evaluated the concept of nondualism and accessed its merit I would appreciate it.

There's a sucker born every minute !
(multiple breasts help)

Certainly more useful than 300 testicles.

Incidentally, you mentioned earlier that you recently discovered that men and women can have multiple breasts and I can't help but ask if you are surrounded by unibreasted people.

No, I'm occasionally adjacent to the binary version but the probability of "surrounded" seems to be following an exponential decay curve.

"Suck it and see………..certainly orients in the right direction; away from purely intellectual explanations, and parallels my earlier:

Within your visual field do you see a seer of that field?

twyvel

This is the "difficult" point which the non-experienced attempt to dismiss "intellectually". They cannot "see" that their vision is restricted by those very intellectual processes whose modus vivendi is within the language of dualities.
There is a quality of "vision" from the "higher position" which cannot be "appreciated" from the ground, any more than a two dimensional photograph can "do justice to" the experience of standing at the top of Niagra Falls. Our worded arguments are of even lesser worth than a photo in this respect.

(Slight edit after 15 mins)

Craven,

One of my "me's" is interested in knowing if one of yours thinks it has "learnt anything" it didn't know already. (Make sure you ask the right one now!).

Yes, I learned that you infrequently view breasts.

But all the 'philosophy' was old stuff.

I think we could reasonably say that we each of us have all had some experiences that ?'some' others have not and vice versa, that some have reflected on some issues others have not. And that's fine, no judgements there.

If we reflect and look upon the same issue we may come out with different views, but there is also the observation that there are some things that if they are true for you they would also true for me. If I come upon what I think is a universal truth then I would adopt the bias that Craven keeps pointing out; that an understanding of that truth cannot have fundamental disagreements unless the understands are wrong or flawed in some way. We cannot have major disagreements about the truth if ?'truth' is >this< and not that. So it would seem that there is required a level of trust, or believe and/or of course a great amount of curiosity and/or the intuitive sense or ?'gut' feeling that nondualism is correct, and/or in the least an attitude that say okay lets look and see.

For many inquiry starts at the intellectual level; a ?'self' searching that include the questioning of common sense juxtaposed with experiential observations, "Every perception is opportunity for satori", meaning it is experiential.

"Satori is a Japanese word that roughly translates into "individual enlightenment." The Chinese refer to it as "Wu." Satori can also be described as a flash of awareness. Traditional ways of acquiring satori have been through meditation, introspection, and through the use of koans or "riddles." Some people achieve satori through dialogue much like how Greek philosophers analyzed and discussed life through lectures and inquiry with students and peers. Our students are encouraged to achieve satori through the combined efforts of daily action, relating to others, meditation practice, and inquiry into the nature of people. There is neither a right nor wrong way to acquire satori. You can neither force it nor deny it by way of the Socratic method or from cup of green tea. It simply is a profound personal experience that moves a person towards freedom.

http://satoridharmahawaii.htmlplanet.com/

"freedom' being a permanent or temporary disidentification from biology and localised awareness.

twyvel,

What criteria did you use to accept validity of nondualism?