Who you really are,(i.e.,what your defining personality is), is who all relevant persons in your life perceive you to be, ....not who you believe yourself to be. Do you agree with this thesis?
That which observes thought cannot observe that which it is, i.e. consciousness. ...
The ego isn't conscious. If the ego is ?'thought' or a composite of thoughts/idea/mental images/percepts etc., and thoughts/ideas/percepts cannot observe, then the ego doesn't observe. ...
The eminent characteristic of consciousness is that it is unobservable.
When I say ?'nothing observes', it's based on the observation that consciousness cannot be observed. If that which is observed has to be objectified; has to become an object of observation, consciousness, since it is that which observes cannot be objectified; it is always doing the observing. "nothing" means, nothing objectified. Consciousness is nothing objectified, objectifiable.
For dualism it creates an impossibility, a complete mystery, i.e. how can nothing observe something? But there it is if one cares to look. Some don't see it, some find it a tad interesting, and some find it absolutely staggering, a huge mystery that questions/challenges what they have thought and think they are. An then as JLN says, it takes time, or not.
I appreciate the fact that I approach the world both dualistically and non-dualistically while you approach it only dualistically. Is that not so?
joefrom chicago, like myself, prefer to look at the world around us exactly as it comes across to us and influences are lives....dualistically.
twyvel, we have been over this many times. You still cling to those old fallacies of mysticism and refuse to acknowledge recent findings on how the brain generates consciousness.
Yes, consciousness is observable, directly by the conscious person and indirectly by others through brain scans and behavior. Consciousness is indeed something, just as surely as love and other intangibles that are produced by the biochemistry of human beings. Yes, the ego is part of consciousness. Yes, that which observes can be objectified, and that which is observed can also be the subject which observes.
alikimr wrote:joefrom chicago, like myself, prefer to look at the world around us exactly as it comes across to us and influences are lives....dualistically.
I do not "prefer" to look at the world dualistically. Rather, logic and common sense compel me to do so.
JLNobody wrote:I appreciate the fact that I approach the world both dualistically and non-dualistically while you approach it only dualistically. Is that not so?
No, that is not so at all. We both approach the world dualistically. And you certainly cannot convince me otherwise, since, as I have explained many times in the past, you have no basis for distinguishing your purported "non-dualistic" experiences from hallucinations or delusions.
If you/I/we, as ego/body ?'self' are one element of the dualism, that is, the subject in subject?-object relations, then you/I do not look at the world dualistically as we are one aspect of the dualism. As JLN put it, the you/I is a character >in< the dream/delusion.
The only way the world can be looked at dualistically is from a third position that observes the subject?-object interaction/relation, a position that you and others fail to see or acknowledge.
The ego/body self doesn't create or observe dualism, rather, due to its presence dualism is created. Do you see the distinction?
Abstractly: You/I cannot distinguish between X and Y if you are X or Y. The distinction is made from a third position that observes both X and Y, In as much as X and Y (subject?-object) are observed I as observer am neither.
Of course ?'we' as imagined egos live this illusion of dualism imagining that the solidified and objectified ego is a self that is self aware, lost in maya/samsara identified and saturated into a character that thinks it has autonomy. Yet there is no ?'one' or ?'self' to get lost, and samsara and nirvana are one, and I/we/you/us/me are >that< one, (which is not a ?'one') ,which cannot be referred to because it is the source of the referring.
Are you suggesting that it is logically impossible for one "element of the dualism" to view the world dualistically, or are you saying that it is impossible empirically?
The only way the world can be looked at dualistically is from a third position that observes the subject?-object interaction/relation, a position that you and others fail to see or acknowledge.
Quote:"Fail to be convinced" is more like it.
Abstractly: You/I cannot distinguish between X and Y if you are X or Y. The distinction is made from a third position that observes both X and Y, In as much as X and Y (subject?-object) are observed I as observer am neither.
Quote:Nonsense.
In order for "one element of the dualism", namely the subject, to view the ?'dualism' it would have to view its ?'self' (as subject) standing in relation to objects, but it cannot because it cannot stand ?'back' from that which it is. It cannot jump out of its own skin and see its ?'self' objectively. Dualism comes about by making a distinction between a subject and its objects but that distinction cannot be make by an ego bound subject because in order to make the distinction both the subject and object have to be objectified. Once objectified, both the subject and its objects are observed by something that is neither; something that is not objectified.
To the extent that the above is or could be true, it is premised on the law of non-contradiction. Since, however, you deny the validity of the law of non-contradiction, the above cannot be true (or, rather, it is equally true and false, and thus it is meaningless).
But that's the point.
My above is about dualism (not nondualism) and the contradictions inherent in it. If in our analysis of subject-object dualism we find a contradiction that is contrary to the law of non-contradiction then the dualism fails, since it is based on that law. That's the issue, not my nondual position.
Dualism fails when it claims that the subject in subject?-object relations is not it self an object. I.e. dualism is self contradictory (contradicts the law of non-contradiction) by the assertion that the subject is simultaneous a subject and an object to itself as subject. It is a self defeating theory.
So my above can be true.
Ultimately everything, all knowledge can be considered meaningless since it is all construction, but that is hardly the present issue at hand.
The problem for you, twyvel, is not that you attempt to show that dualism suffers from a fatal contradiction: it's that you attempt to do so while still denying the validity of the law of non-contradiction. You can argue that dualism is inherently contradictory, but even if you proved your case (which you haven't -- not by a long shot), you'd still be left with nothing. Your denial of the law of non-contradiction leaves dualism with a way out: even if it is contradictory on its face, contradiction doesn't matter. If, in other words, dualism is fatally contradictory, but the law of non-contradiction is invalid, then dualism can still be true. You think that you have caught dualism in a logical net, but you don't realize that the net has a huge hole in it that you made yourself.
Dualism fails when it claims that the subject in subject?-object relations is not it self an object. I.e. dualism is self contradictory (contradicts the law of non-contradiction) by the assertion that the subject is simultaneous a subject and an object to itself as subject. It is a self defeating theory.
Quote:You've been peddling these wares for quite some time,
but I'm beginning to suspect that it is nothing more than a strawman argument:
Anyone with any position can put forward this critique of dualism, including dualists. As a theory, that dualism contradicts its own law of non-contradiction has nothing to do with my nondual position or anyone else's position; it fails on its own terms.
In fact, I suspect that many dualists having come to the understanding of the perpetual regression of the subject, whether every subject that is found turns out to be another object, have abandoned their dualism.
Quote:but I'm beginning to suspect that it is nothing more than a strawman argument:
That's just an unsupported, unfounded accusation. If you can see a strawman you would have probably pointed it out rather then merely making the accusation.
