No Reality Outside Our Own Existence

Craven, I have benefitted from Fresco's and Twyvel's recent posts. I hope you have also. You know, it occurs to me, upon reading Tywvel's discussion of "satori" that my debates here with "dualists" has been, on my part, very dualistic. I do not merely refer to the fact that language (particularly grammar) and logic are inherently dualistic, but to the fact that the framework of debate--dualists VERSUS non-dualists--is inherently dualistic. I have always felt that Buddhist satori refers to a sudden awareness of one's INHERENT enlightenment. Enlightenment, in the Buddhist or Vedanta sense, is not synonymous with satori. Twyvel notes that "'Every perception is opportunity for satori", meaning it is experiential." I have long since felt that experience itself is enlightenment (which is what is meant by "inherent enlightenment"). The only obstacle to the enlightenment of experience is thinking ABOUT experience (unless, of course, we experience our thinking AS experience--as is done in mindfulness meditation). What I am leading to is the fact that everyone is ultimately enlightened, if they are conscious, if they are experiencing sensations. I know this will elicit a barrage of criticisms from many people, but I'll continue anyway. Dualists experience non-dualistically each moment of their life experience, before and even as they gloss them over with "meaningful representations." WE ARE ULTIMATELY ALL NONDUALISTS. Simulaneously, we are all dualists as well. I do not know any thinking person who is not, even the five bona fide zen masters I have known. SO, for me to describe our debate as one between dualists and non-dualists, as if we were two absolutely distinct groups, would be very one-sidedly dualistic of me. We are really like two sides of a single coin both arguing over which side can claim the title of heads.

I have, it turns out that I'd significantly overestimated the validity of dualism.

I'll try to respond to the latest posts over the weekend.

And it can be that some of us have tended to overestimate the value of nondualism, if by that we have thought that we can, should, or need to put an end to dualism.

I wasn't really talking about you overestimating it as much as myself having the expectation that the arguments in support of it could be more than the "suck and see" faith arguments. That's what I suspected since the beginning but I posed a question to inquire how the concept got through each of your vetting.

The answers were pretty much just circular arguments employing the concept itself to validate itself. The effort to elicit a sound criteria through which naive dualism's validity could be accessed was very telling.

I think such complex matters like these cannot be dealt with by means of a simple and single criterion. The thinking here has more to do with Fresco's notion of "goodness of fit" and a principle of coherence. Such a complex issue as dealt with here requires intuitive and general as well as precise and logical processes. By "suck it and see" I see no reference to faith; I see reference to experience, indeed, a kind of experimentation. I hope we are talking about the same thing.

"Goodness of fit" is the conclusion of the accessment, not the means through which it is accessed.

Similarly "I like it" is the conclusion of the taste test.

In regard to "experiencing" a concept, I have "experienced" it and found it lacking (i.e. unfit). The "satori" can go both ways.

JLNobody

I like the way you draw out the non-distinction between dualism and nondualism; different bread from the same dough. "WE ARE ULTIMATELY ALL NONDUALISTS. Simulaneously, we are all dualists as well.",

Dually we are all >both< dualists and nondualists. Nondually there is no we.


Craven

As I expected, despite the denials, you guys are using "understanding" and "experience" as a euphemism for accepting your position.

Craven wrote:




If you do not understand X, you are not accepting or rejecting X.

Thing is, I understand X very well, but because I disagree with it (e.g. "find it lacking") you decide that I do not understand it.

The only acceptable "understanding" for you is acceptance of your position. Which makes this an excercise in futility.

Craven, your response is not correct (notice I have not insulted YOU). We are merely saying (if I can speak for all of us) that by not understanding us you are merely not understanding us. I know that you can understand and disagree; that is so obvious you need not repeat it again. But I feel quite certain that your understanding of dualism is not anything like mine, or ours. You say that in YOUR understanding of non-dualism, you "find it lacking". Of course you do; as I see it, at least, your understanding of it is lacking--at least we could not see how your understanding of it could not be lacking. Moreover, even the correct understanding of it would recognize it as lacking in some respect: it is inadequate/lacking for doing tasks that call for dualistic analysis (which I presume for you includes all intellectual work). Notice that this is a reference to "goodness of fit." When you referred to this phrase earlier, you seem to be referring to the goodness of logical fit between premises and conclusions (correct me if I'm wrong). I refer, by the phrase, to the appropriateness of a method for a particular problem, to the goodness of fit between an instrument and a task (i.e., one would not use Newtonian mechanics for a theoretical problem calling for princples from Einstein's relativity theory--AND VICE VERSA). At least this is how I've seen it used in the social scientific literature (including statistics, if I recall). I'm not sure this is what Fresco meant.

Believe it or not, I have seen a stream flow both ways in South America.

Wow! Was that at the equator? I would hate to flush a toilet at that spot. Have I forgotten where the direction of the toilet swirl changes direction?

JLNobody, it is correct.



And I, in turn, contend that nothing short of accepting the validity of nondualism constitutes "understanding" to you.

This is a contention that you repeatedly validate and that you will again validate within this very quoted post.



In that I think it's lacking in merit there is indeed a difference.



Indeed, the mere fact that I find it lacking makes you decide I do not "understand" it. To believe that anyone who truely "understands" it will not find it lacking validity altogether has inherent appeal, but is not true.




Before we can base positions on the "correct understanding" we'd have to agree on what said animal is, and we certainly do not. Because for you, "correct understanding" means an acceptance on some level of its validity.

JLN and Craven.

I used "goodness of fit" and "Einstein delimiting Newton" metaphorically within the contextual flow which has now moved on. The key issue is that within dualism "circularity" has no negative connotation, in fact one of my references on Maturana implies it is positive. The only answer to Craven about "evaluation" is one of "experience" which of course he rejects. But the irony is that if he had the "same" experience as ourselves he would perhaps see questions about "evaluation" as "mechanical operations of the intellect" without significance. This suspension of the intellect by the intellectual is the the entry fee to an interesting ride. (I acknowledge twyvels attempts to capture this point from within)

Craven

No, I am not. I am rejecting your concept of nondualism.



I know twyvel, you use "understanding" as a euphemism for "accepting" the concept.

You are saying that "understanding" and "experiencing" nondualism is to see dualism for the "fiction it is".

It's not fiction. And your use of these terms "understanding" and such are predicated on the notion that one would have to see it your way to qualify for having understood it.

I do not reject the vetting through experience. I reject the definition of "experience" as acceptance of the validity of the concept because if that is a prerequisite there's no vetting at all.

"To evaluate whether it has merit you must first decide that it has merit."

No! suspend decision