Yes. Intelligence comes from the subject; intelligibility is that to which the subject’s intelligence responds. — Mww

Ok. But how is this different from an indirect realism that say we can have only a distorted knowledge of the noumenon?
I thought that Kant believed we could know nothing of the noumenon.

Does that help? — Ludwig V

I'm not sure. Intelligibility of an entity merely means that, in principle, the entity has some kind of structure that can be known by an intellect. So even claiming that an entity has a structure implies saying that it is intelligible IMO (not necessarily by you or me but in principle).

It seems to me that you aren't denying that the world independent from us has a structure. To me this means that you're saying that it is intelligible. However, this intelligibility might be a 'given' that isn't necessarily 'due to' something more fundamental. I would say that it is 'due to' something more fundamental but intelligibility alone doesn't force that conclusion.

So you do distinguish between the material (plastic) and it's function (bottle). Materialism does try to "reduce" mind (function) to brain (matter). But we don't have to deny the substantial role of Brain in order to discuss the essential role of Mind. Holism is Both/And not Either/Or. :smile: — Gnomon

I wouldn't say that 'mind' is a 'function'. Rather something more like an 'inner' aspect of an entity. In other words, you can't detect qualitative experience ('qualia') precisely because the mind isn't 'public' like the body.

I agree. A Soul without a body is a Ghost. And a ghost is an incomplete person. I've never met a person with only a body/brain, or without a soul/mind. But Christian dualism views the Soul as distinct from the body*1. In other words, a body without a soul is dead meat. In my own musings though, I try to avoid getting into theology, by using scientific terms where possible. Hence a human Person is more than a body/brain, she is a complex adaptive system of physical Matter and metaphysical Mind. So, mind without body is a disembodied spirit, and body without life/mind is road kill. Note that I combine Life & Mind to imply that those two functions are on the same continuum of Causation. :cool: — Gnomon

The ancients viewed the 'soul' as the 'life principle'. So, a 'soulless' body is a dead body because its 'form' is incompatible with life, not because the body has lost 'something material' that could be detectable.

In other words, a purely 'beaviourist' account of, say, a human being is in a sense correct but incomplete as it neglects the 'private' aspect of experience. However, this doesn't mean that we can't say if, for instance, someone is dead even if we can't strictly speaking the detects his or her mind.

Regarding Christian dualism, in a sense yes body and soul are distinct but conceptually they are also for Aristotle, for instance. However, notice that for them the human being is 'complete' if it has both soul and the body. And the 'human being' is 'perfected' at the resurrection in which the body also is perfected. In other words, Christianity clearly sees human beings as embodied creatures and not just 'souls trapped in bodies' as Plato (or Descartes) would say (however, I would avoid to go off-topic and discuss about the specifics of Christian 'dualism').

Are you aware that scientists have recently discovered that mental Information & physical Energy are interchangeable? — Gnomon

Are you sure that they aren't comparing perhaps information to the 'patters' in which energy is stored and transferred rather than to 'energy' itself.

Photons are often imagined as particles of Matter, even though they are holistic Fields of Energy — Gnomon

Photons are just particles with zero rest mass/energy. They aren't said to be 'material' because it has been arbitrarily decided to call 'material' only what has rest mass/energy (or what isn't a mediator of an interaction). However, photons are just as 'natural' or 'physical' as electrons. So, I'm not sure why people do not want to call them 'material' (the word 'matter' also comes from 'mother', i.e. 'Mother Nature'... so 'material' and 'natural' seems to mean the same except in technical language of the physicists).

Anyway, I too understand both physical arrangements and metaphysical patterns as different configurations of Platonic Form. — Gnomon

Platonic forms are thought to be transcendent from the natural world. Do you think that these 'arragnements and patterns' would still exist if there was no world?

I don’t want to give the impression that I doubt science’s capacity for extraordinary accuracy in the measurement of time (and distance). — Wayfarer

Yes, I know.

The point is that this quietly undermines the assumption that what is real independently of any observer can serve as the criterion for what truly exists. That move smuggles in a standpoint that no observer can actually occupy. It’s a subtle point — but also a modest one. It doesn't over-reach. — Wayfarer

It seems to me that you're saying that the intelligible structure of the empirical world comes from the interaction between the subject and the world. From this interaction, you get the empirical world with its intelligible structure. OK.

However, this clearly raises the question of how the subjects come into being, if you also accept that the subjects are contingent (i.e. that both their existence and their non-existence is a possibility). If you say that there is an explanation of their coming into being (albeit perhaps unknowable for us) you would say that there intelligibility 'prior' (not necessarily in a temporal sense of the word) to the subjects, i.e. independent from them. If, however, you say that there is no explanation (even if unkowable for us) for their coming into being, you have either to admit that (1) independendently from the subject the world isn't intelligible and therefore the coming into being of the subjects is also unintelligible which, however, would raise the question of how consistent such a claim can be or (2) that intelligibilty simply doesn't apply outside the context of the subjects and the problems that a view like (1) would raise do not apply because ultimately there are no subjects (i.e. non-dualism).

In other words, the 'weaker', non-committal view is IMO unstable. It either 'degenerates' into an indirect realism in which the world independently of the subjects has an intelligible structure. Or it 'degenerates' into a non-dualist view in which, ultimately, the subjects, the empirical worlds and so on are seen as ultimately illusory.

Tautologically true; we’re here, for which some explanation is necessary. — Mww

So, you accept the idea that intelligibility doesn't come from the subject?

I should have qualified the impossibility by saying "impossible to know by us" or something like that. I mean, I accept that our knowledge has limitations and something can be impossible to be known by us even if it is possible to know in principle.

was only voicing concern for attributing to time plausible explanatory ground for the existence of sentient beings. It’s like…seeking an answer the truth of which is impossible to prove, given from something the truth of which is impossible to know — Mww

The fact that it might be impossible for us to know how sentient beings came into existence doesn't exclude that an explanation is possible in principle.

I believe that the existence of sentient beings in this world is contingent. If I am right, this means that sentient beings could not exist. If so, there is perhaps an explanation for their existence even if we are not in a condition to know it and we might never truly know it.

Agreed!

Look, it wasn't my intention to be condenscending, contrarian or whatever. I just believe that in order to understand any philosophical or religious tradition it is very important to study the texts the members of a given tradition considers authoritative or important and take them seriously. And I believe that one's own convictions influence how one engage with the world.

Incidentally, I studied Buddhism for years and at times I considered the idea even of ordaining (however I never formally joined any tradition). So, I see Buddhist traditions as relevant and it still happens that I enjoy a lot studying, learning and discussing about them. Incidentally, I also lean towards some form panentheism now.

But anyway, apparently I am also coming across as arrogant or something like that even if I have no intention of being that. I take this as an occasion for reflection on how I am engaging these kinds of debate. For this reason, I step down from this discussion and this is my last post on this thread.

Well, my first reaction is to examine the question to work out what will count as an answer. — Ludwig V

Yes, I agree.

A disordered pile of books is only chaotic because it is not ordered in a way that is interesting to us. There are in fact, endless ways in which they could be ordered. Our problem is only to pick which order we impose on them. Radical chaos is different. In such a world, we would be unable to identify any object, process or event; there could be no constituents to be ordered or chaotic. — Ludwig V

In other words, the intelligibility of the world to you is a 'given' that isn't explainable in terms of something more fundamental. Am I misunderstanding you?

Fair enough. — Ludwig V

Ok.

So you don't distinguish between the living and thinking aspects of your being? Do you think you are all Mind, or all Body? The all-body view, with Mind minimized as epi-phenomenon, is known as Materialism or Physicalism. Yet, that physical-only perspective limits your ability to do Philosophy of Metaphysics, Ontology, Epistemology, and Ethics. — Gnomon

Personally, I think that I am mind and body. As an analogy, think of a 'plastic bottle'. The 'plastic bottle' is both 'plastic' and 'a bottle'. Neither of them describe what a 'plastic bottle' is in its entirety. And you can't 'reduce' one into the other.

That's why the early philosophers, such as Plato & Aristotle adopted the worldview now known as Dualism. Aristotle tried to avoid Supernaturalism though, by postulating two different kinds of Substance : Hyle (matter) and Morph (form). Ironically, early theologians labeled those substances as physical Body & metaphysical Soul. — Gnomon

Interestingly, in Christian theology the 'human being' is complete if both 'soul' and 'body' are present. Anyway, the dualism of Aristotle and the Christians wasn't like Cartesian dualism. The latter asserts that the 'mind/soul' and the 'body' are different substances. Aristotle and the Christians held that they are two essential aspects of the same substance.
This is quite close to my own view.

However, I have adopted a 21st century version of Aristotle's Morph, with the modern concepts of Energy and Information*1 in place of Plato's supernatural Form. That way, I can have the best of both worlds : physical Science (hyle) and metaphysical Philosophy (morph). — Gnomon

I can see that. But IMO 'energy' isn't the right thing to appeal to for 'form'. I believe that Bohm and Hiley's 'active information' is much more congenial to your purposes.

But in this case, the "coin" is Causal or Active Information*2*3, in the same sense that Energy can take-on the radically different forms of both Light and Matter (E = MC^2). — Gnomon

Both 'light' and 'matter' would actually be forms of 'matter'/'body'. Their structure perhaps is something more understandable as 'form'.

I was only voicing concern for attributing to time plausible explanatory ground for the existence of sentient beings. It’s like…seeking an answer the truth of which is impossible to prove, given from something the truth of which is impossible to know. — Mww

I might agree with that. But an impossibility to know an explanation isn't a conclusive evidence of an absence of an explanation.

Intelligibility is not something the world produces, but something that arises in the relation between a world and a mind capable of making sense of it. For a contemporary cognitive-science way of expressing this without metaphysical commitments, John Vervaeke’s notion of “relevance realisation” points in a similar direction: intelligibility emerges as an ongoing activity of sense-making enacted by cognitive agents in their engagement with the world. — Wayfarer

If intelligibility arises from the relation between the world and a certain kind of mind, such a relation is the ground of intelligibility. This, indeed, is like saying that there is no intelligible explanation of how such a relation can exist. However, the very fact that one says that "intelligibility emerges in this way" presupposes intelligibility.

Interesting. I had never heard of Nagarjuna. So, what is left after objectification? The Tao is also known as non-being and is often not considered a thing at all. — T Clark

Yes, Taoism IMO is the closest view to Buddhism non-dualism. As @Wayfarer however correctly pointed out there is controversy about how to interpret Nagarjuna's thought (for instance, this SEP article elucidates how various Tibetan exegitical school understood the difference between the 'two truths' of Nagarjuna). Still, I can't help but seeing similarities here.

Still, this "So, what is left after objectification?" is a very IMO deep problem. I came to the view that intelligibility is in fact essential to being. So, perhaps my own answer would be 'nothing' (if objectification is understood as intelligibility).

I don't think what the Taoists call "the 10,000 things," i.e. the multiplicity of the world, arise only from rational thought. Our minds are doing a lot we are not fully aware of. I am strongly drawn to the idea we are all subject to human nature--both ours as human beings and our own as individuals. Taoists call this "Te." As I understand it, our human nature includes a structured mind that limits and directs us to a particular relationship with, particular knowledge of, the world, including a particular division of the Unity, whatever you call it, into the vast universe of things we find ourselves in. — T Clark

I agree with that but not that 'rationality' isn't limited to what we are aware. Regardless of that, however, the point I am making is that if there wasn't a 'structured reality' before the arising of 'human nature', I'm not sure how could the latter arise in the first place. The only answer that might make sense in this view is that multiplicity is, in fact, illusory and reality is still that 'unstructured unity' or 'unstructured reality that is neither one nor many'. In other words, the 'change' is merely apparent. Indeed, as I read it, Laozi seems to suggest just that in ch1 of the Tao Te Ching. It seems to me that, in fact, he's saying that multiplicity is superimposed by 'desire':

Ever desireless, one can see the mystery.
Ever desiring, one can see the manifestations.
These two spring from the same source but differ in name;
this appears as darkness.
Darkness within darkness.
The gate to all mystery. — Tao Te Ching, ch.1

So it makes no sense to look for an empirical cause of Kant’s categories. — Joshs

I see this assertion repeated by Kantians but to be honest this seems to be a distraction. The point isn't finding empirical causes of the categories. The assumption that they might have a cause arises from the fact that our existence seems contingent. If it is contingent, our existence should have a cause.

But Kant considers transcendental subjectivity to be an atemporal condition of possibility of time. — Joshs

To me this would only make sense if our mind was also atemporal. Indeed, if 'transcendental subjectivity' is not 'nothing' or a mere illusion, it seems to me that the logical conclusion is to say that 'transcendental subjectivity' is atemporal. This almost sounds like what the Indian Samkyas ("there are a plurality of eternal minds") or the Advaita Vedanta ("there is only one eternal mind") would say. Of course, Kant would disagree with this characterization but I find interesting that Schopenhauer almost made those moves.

In Husserl, transcendental subjectivty is nothing but the structure of time itself. It is not contingent; it is contingency itself. — Joshs

Contingency means "the possibility of not be", i.e. X is contingent if it is possible for X to not be. If (1) 'X exists' and (2) 'X is contingent' this would suggest that there is a 'reason' (in a general sense of the word 'reason') that 'X' exists. So, I'm not sure of what Husserl means here.

There is no pre-given temporal form that consciousness then inhabits; temporality is inseparable from the flow of conscious life itself. Transcendental subjectivity is therefore not “before” time, nor “outside” time, nor a condition of possibility in the Kantian sense of a formal constraint. It is a self-temporalizing process. — Joshs

Is this 'transcendental subjectivity' inter-subjective? That is, is it shared between subjects?

That’s true, although it’s worth noting that Aristotle’s unmoved mover does not function as a source of the world’s intelligibility. As νοήσεως νόησις, it thinks only itself, and does not impose form or order on the cosmos. For Aristotle, the intelligibility of nature is intrinsic to substances themselves rather than conferred by a divine intellect contemplating or structuring the world. — Esse Quam Videri

I'm not so sure about this. While God is not seen as an efficient cause of entities, it is seen as their final cause, IIRC. Given this, I'm not sure how you can safely say that their intelligibility isn't rooted in the Unmoved Mover according to him.

Regardless for that, however, I agree with you that intelligibility alone certainly doesn't 'prove' the existence of God.

It seems clear to me that you're simply trying to faithfully support your religious beliefs. — praxis

It is interesting that I am again read as seemingly having an 'agenda' behind my posts. In fact, I am not even a Buddhist and I reject the traditional Buddhist/Hindu etc doctrine of samsara/rebirth. It is indeed evident that I am very interested in Buddhism and I concede that some of the Buddhist schools had a considerable metaphysical sophistication.
However, I am not here making an 'apology' to traditional Buddhism(s). To be fair, however, I genuinely find curious the efforts of trying to 'purify' Buddhism of its 'supernatural' elements and still call what remains 'Buddhism'. I don't think that you are doing this but in this thread I was mostly bringing textual evidence of how pervasive among historical Buddhists was the belief in rebirth and while Buddhists had a long history of debates about other important tenets rebirth was never really questioned (again, I am happy to be proven wrong). Personally, I find evidence that Buddhists believed that 'belief in rebirth' was extremely important, perhaps even essential for their spiritual practice. Were they right? Maybe yes, maybe not. However, the 'consensus' one finds is quite interesting.

You say the Buddha is clear about belief in samsara (not particularly rebirth) as a motivator for practice, and make other references to direct experience, such as this: — praxis

I'm not sure how "And I have also said: ‘Whatever is felt is included in suffering.’ That has been stated by me with reference to the impermanence of formations." is a statement about 'direct experience'. For one, I do not see as 'self-evident' that the impermanence of 'formations' is a cause of suffering. Indeed, one can say that by 'direct experience' one sees that experiences are impermanent. However, it isn't obvious that impermanence must be something negative. It seems to me that many people also enjoy the 'variety' that life offers. For them it isn't obvious that change is a negative factor.

To be fair, one of the earliest accounts of the Buddha's own enlightnment is something like this:

“When my concentrated mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to knowledge of the recollection of past lives. I recollected my manifold past lives, that is, one birth, two births…as Sutta 4, §27…Thus with their aspects and particulars I recollected my manifold past lives.“This was the first true knowledge attained by me in the first watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who abides diligent, ardent, and resolute.

But such pleasant feeling that arose in me did not invade my mind and remain.“When my concentrated mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of beings…as Sutta 4, §29… Thus with the divine eye, which is purified and surpasses the human, I saw beings passing away and reappearing, inferior and superior, fair and ugly, fortunate and unfortunate, and I understood how beings pass on according to their actions.“This was the second true knowledge attained by me in the middle watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who abides diligent, ardent, and resolute.

But such pleasant feeling that arose in me did not invade my mind and remain.“When my concentrated mind was thus purified, bright, unblemished, rid of imperfection, malleable, wieldy, steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to knowledge of the destruction of the taints. I directly knew as it actually is: ‘This is suffering’;…‘This is the origin of suffering’;…‘This is the cessation of suffering’;…‘This is the way leading to the cessation of suffering’;…‘These are the taints’;…‘This is the origin of the taints’;…‘This is the cessation of the taints’;…‘This is the way leading to the cessation of the taints.’“When I knew and saw thus, my mind was liberated from the taint of sensual desire, from the taint of being, and from the taint of ignorance. When it was liberated there came the knowledge: ‘It is liberated.’ I directly knew: ‘Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what had to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.’“This was the third true knowledge attained by me in the last watch of the night. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who abides diligent, ardent, and resolute. But such pleasant feeling that arose in me did not invade my mind and remain. — MN 36, bhikkhu Bodhi translation

Indeed, the Buddha here is reported to say that it is the 'third knowledge' that was essential for 'liberation'. However, he didn't saw it as contradictory to the first two and indeed somehow felt it was important to share them too.

You say the Buddha is clear about belief in samsara (not particularly rebirth) as a motivator for practice, — praxis

Have a read of the suttas contained in SN 15. Belief in literal rebirth was indeed seen as a motivator.

Views change, however, indeed all things change, right? — praxis

this might be an over-semplification of the Buddhist view of impermanence. While not perhaps 'things', according to the Pali Buddhist texts, for instance, the truths of dependent origination and the three marks do not change. If they did change, liberation could become unattainable. While these might not be 'things', Buddhist emphasis on impermanence hardly justifies a view where all is in a 'chaotic flux' in which the 'laws' can change. This is however an important point. If the 'laws' that 'rule' the origination and cessation of suffering do not change, arguably the practice for liberation doesn't change. And this perhaps means that the beliefs on which one bases his or her practice shouldn't change.

A classic example of changing views and those revised views not effecting practice is a compass. Some ancient peoples had rather superstitious views about how a compass worked, yet the practice of using one is essentially the same as it is today. The modern 'right view' of how a compass works doesn't make a compass less effective, and it is no less, uh, motivational. — praxis

While this might be true and I have no particular arguments against the principle you are following here, I wouldn't be so sure that we have sufficient evidence to say that belief in literal rebirth isn't essential to achieve the 'states of mind' that Buddhist historically attributed to arhats, Buddhas and so on. In other words, I am not saying that you're automatically wrong in saying this nor I am saying that I am certain that, say, different religious traditions can't reach the same state.

I'm just saying, however, it is best to be aware of what Buddhists have said about these topics in the history of their traditions. Indeed, if one truly believes that, say, the Buddha and other people that followed his teachings were truly 'enlightened' (whatever that means) it seems to me that the best strategy to follow to reach their 'goal' is to take seriously their reported words. And to me the fact that nobody in the Buddhist traditions seems to have questioned the belief in literal rebirths (and, in fact, they generally taught it as true and as a basis for motivation for practice) should be taken more seriously.

Of course, at the end of the day it might be irrelevant for reaching 'enlightenment'. For all I know, someday a human being who will reach the same 'achievements' of the Buddha might tell us that the previous Buddhists were just wrong about that.

Yes thank you and I apologise for the accusation as I think I was a little uncharitable there. You are clearly making honest efforts to explain your position. — unimportant

No worries and thanks for the apology. Misunderstanding can happen. I guess that I should also apologize for the tone of some of my comments.

While what you are saying seems to be the only Buddhism is the effective martial art or maybe the only one to cause a certain kind of damage? while the others might cause different and unique damage but not the same damage as Buddhism? — unimportant

Yes, I think you nailed the point I was making with your analogy.

In other words, I do not believe that we have shown 'beyond reasonable doubts' that beliefs do not influence the practice in such a way that the status one can reach can be different (albeit similar). That said, this is not to say that one can't reach significant mental 'achievements' even from a Buddhist point of view while not believing in Buddhist doctrines. Indeed, it seems that this is accepted even the earliest Buddhist discourses. For instance the Bahiya sutta seems to imply that a serious non-Buddhist meditative practice can make enlightenment easier when one learns about the Dharma. This is quite impressively 'ecumenical' for the time (however, it is undeniable that ancient Buddhists believed that true liberation was to be found only in the Buddha's dispensation, i.e. they were exclusivists. However, they accepted some validity for the practices of other religions/philosophies).

Once again I can’t make sense of what you’re saying. — praxis

I wasn't trying to be confrontational or obscure but I can admit that the post you quoted was unclear. So, let me just start by saying that, no, the problem is not the translation. Other scholars used different English words for the Pali word 'dukkha' but that's not the point. Indeed, however, the quote you gave is of pivotal importance. As Nyanaponika Thera wrote in the same essay I already quoted:

Statements in the form of negative terms include such
definitions of Nibbāna as “the destruction of greed, hate and delusion” and as “cessation of
existence” (bhava-nirodha).
...
Negative ways of expression have another important advantage. Statements like those
defining Nibbāna as “the destruction of greed, hatred and delusion” indicate the direction to
be taken, and the work to be done to actually reach Nibbāna — Nyanaponika Thera, Anatta and Nibbana, p.14-5

Clearly, the 'cessation of suffering' is a 'negative description' of Nirvana. What Nyanaponika wrote above seems cogent. It is hard to understand the 'origination and cessation' of 'suffering' if we do not know what 'suffering' is. And, perhaps, we should understand what 'suffering' is in order to reach the 'cessation of suffering'.

Remarkably, the Pali sutta themselves had a rich understanding of the word 'dukkha' that included 'things' that aren't so evident to be 'suffering' for me. I'll quote a few examples:

Now this, bhikkhus, is the noble truth of suffering: birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering; union with what is displeasing is suffering; separation from what is pleasing is suffering; not to get what one wants is suffering; in brief, the five aggregates subject to clinging are suffering. — SN 56.11, Bhikkhu Bodhi translation, emphasis mine

While arguably the other things that are named are easily seen as suffering except for the 'five aggregates subject to clinging' that clearly is a technical expression, the declaration that 'birth is suffering' can sound strange. How we should understand it?

Another example:

“Bhikkhus, there are these three kinds of suffering. What three? Suffering due to pain, suffering due to formations, suffering due to change. These are the three kinds of suffering. The Noble Eightfold Path is to be developed for direct knowledge of these three kinds of suffering, for the full understanding of them, for their utter destruction, for their abandoning.” — SN 45.165, Bhikkhu Bodhi translation

Now, "suffering due to pain" seems clear. But what about the other two? What does even mean "suffering due to formations"?

And even another example, where the Buddha is reported as saying:

Good, good, bhikkhu! These three feelings have been spoken of by me: pleasant feeling, painful feeling, neither-painful-nor-pleasant feeling. These three feelings have been spoken of by me. And I have also said: ‘Whatever is felt is included in suffering.’ That has been stated by me with reference to the impermanence of formations. — SN 36.11, Bhikkhu Bodhi translation, my emphasis

It is not obvious to me that "whatever is felt" should be included under the heading of 'suffering'.

The translator, Bhikku Bodhi, wrote an essay about 'dukkha'. However, it should be noted that there are different interpretation even of what 'dukkha' is among Buddhists. For instance: do arhats and Buddhas suffer while alive? Does the "whatever is felt is included in suffering" apply to those who are without attachments? If you seek online, you find different answers (I have no time right now to point to sources, but I think it is easy to find them).

So, clearly, just appealing to the fact that "suffering" is said to be the problem and "cessation of suffering" the goal doesn't really help to understand "what the Buddha meant". One should be open to the possibility that, perhaps, one might have a different notion of "what is included in suffering" than, say, the Buddha had.

And, if we come back to the problem of 'rebirth'. Is it totally unrelated to what the Buddha (or a specific Buddhist tradition) mean by 'suffering'? Perhaps, yes. But maybe no.

And, I should add that curiously I never found an instance of a pre-20th century Buddhist who denied rebirth. No 'early Buddhist school' (either inside the Mahayana or the 'non-Mahayana') I am aware of denied it. Conversely, you find many discourses attributed to the Buddha in which he explicitly refers to it and even discourses (as the 15th collection of the Samyutta Nikaya I qouted in my earlier posts) in which the Buddha seems pretty clear in using the belief in samsara as a motivator for practice.

Does the above necessarily mean that one can't, for instance, 'become an arhat' without believing in rebirth and samsara? Of course, not. However, one can't help but notice that before the 20th century the belief in rebirth was never (to my knowledge - happy to be proven wrong) a matter of dispute among Buddhists (and some Indian thinkers did deny rebirth even at the time of the Buddha, see the 'Carvaka/Lokiya' school)?

You can find, of course, many examples of disputes among Buddhists. They disagreed on, say, the status of the Mahayana sutras. They disagreed on the interpretation of Nirvana. They disagreed on the nature of the Buddha. They disagreed even on the interpretation of "what is felt is included in suffering". They even disagreed on how to interpret the doctrine of 'not-self' that arguably distinguishes more than anything else Buddhism from other religions. They disagreed on what 'emptiness' means and what are the true 'implication of dependent origination' (just to make an example not all agreed with verse 18 of Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning of Nagarjuna and among Nagarjuna's supporters the precise understanding of such a statement is disputed). The Kathavatthu, a commentarial book included in the Pali Canon (I quoted a brief excerpt of one of its sections before) is a good example of intra-Buddhist controversies and debates.

And despite all of these disagreements among Buddhists, I am not aware of any single pre-20th century disagreement among Buddhists about the belief in samsara.

So what? Does this mean that rebirth happens? Of course, not. Those Buddhist might be wrong. However, it is hard to deny that if something like 'arhatship' or 'Buddhahood' exist those who 'reached' such states endorsed the belief in rebirth. Of course, they might be wrong. But one can wonder if, indeed, to reach such states (even if, say, the Sautrantika were right in their 'negativistic' view of NIrvana that is attributed to them - i.e. Nirvana is just a mere absence) is necessary to believe in those things.

I hope I clarified what I meant and I also hope that I clarified that I am not writing these posts just for the sake of being a 'contrarian' or being obscure for the sake of being obscure or whatever.

I would add that perhaps we have different understanding of what physics allows us to know about 'physical reality'. Honestly, I oscillate between an 'anti-realist' view (i.e. that physical theories are predictive models) and a more 'realist' view that says that physical theories allows us to know the intelligible structure of the physical world. Note, however, that in both cases it doesn't revel what we might call the 'intrinsic nature' of physical systems. Physics allows us to describe the behaviour of matter but doesn't tell us 'what matter is'. In this sense, even in this more 'realist' view physics alone can't decide among metaphysical theories.

To me this is also the reason why the 'hard problem' can't be resolved by physics. Even if we could be able to describe perfectly the 'behaviour' of human bodies in all their movements such an 'externalist' description would leave out 'subjective experience', 'what if feels like to be...'.

For Lao Tzu it is naming--something human consciousness does--that brings the world into existence. — T Clark

Also @Wayfarer

This is very similar to Ven Nagarjuna's views (however, Nagarjuna would perhaps disagree that what remains after 'erasing' objectiification is the 'Tao'*):

10

When the perfect gnosis sees

That things come from ignorance as condition,

Nothing will then be objectified,

Either in terms of arising or destruction.

...

12

And even with respect to most subtle things

One imputes originations,

Such an utterly unskilled person does not see

The meaning of conditioned origination.

...

21

Since there is nothing that arises,

There is nothing that disintegrates;

Yet the paths of arising and disintegration

Were taught [by the Buddha] for a purpose.

22

By understanding arising, disintegration is understood;

By understanding disintegration, impermanence is understood;

By understanding how to engage with impermanence,

The sublime dharma is understood as well. — Ven Nagarjuna, Sixty Stanzas of Reasoning

Oddly, enough, as a (panen)theist, I actually agree that 'things' arise thanks to a rational mind that is able to distinguish, classify 'things' etc. However 'we' are not responsible for that differentiation.
Also, if 'our' minds are responsible for differentiation, how could we arise as distinct beings from an undifferentiated (?) world?

This is something that non-dualist views IMO do not explain (whether Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu etc).

*At one point the Tao te Ching says that the Tao precedes the 'One', so perhaps the Tao Te Ching is even more similar to Madhyamaka Buddhistm than what it appears (i.e. reality is at the ultimate level 'neither one nor many' etc)

I agree with that - especially that there is a truth in there. Philosophy pushes into binary yes/no responses. But, for example, it is true that we can't get out from our own perspective. What idealists tend not to notice is that our perspective throws up problems that it cannot deal with. So we are forced to reconsider and develop a new perspective. The disruption is the world talking back to us. — Ludwig V

:up: We might have a distorted, imperfect knowledge but we are not ignorant. "We see through a glass, darkly" to borrow a Biblical phrase but we are not blind. Knowledge comes into degrees.

If it has no reason to be intelligible, it has no reason not to be. But this misunderstands what intelligibility is, in two respects. Intelligibility is always partial, never finished. What we understand generates new questions and hence new understandings. But also, the category of the chaotic is, curiously enough, a matter of perspective. A disordered pile of books is only chaotic because it is not ordered in a way that is interesting to us. There are in fact, endless ways in which they could be ordered. Our problem is only to pick which order we impose on them. Radical chaos is different. In such a world, we would be unable to identify any object, process or event; there could be no constituents to be ordered or chaotic. — Ludwig V

Good point. But still, if it is intelligible it seems 'natural' to ask ourselves if there is a 'reason' of that intelligibility.

I'm really not qualified to speculate with you, I'm afraid. — Ludwig V

Of course, you are free to avoid such speculations. But I find them very interesting, fascinating and so on.

But what if the way the world really is is best described by a phenomenological analysis of the structure of self-reflexivity itself? And this analysis is conducted not from an objective distance but from within this reflexivity? — Joshs

I don't see how this does address my points. What is the source of intelligibility of the empirical world? These 'transcendental' idealist/phenomenologist approaches, as I understand them, say that it is the faculties of the rational or sentient beings. Fair enough. However, it seems to me that the question that follows up is: considering that the existence of these beings seems to be contingent (and, indeed, the analysis of the empirical world suggests that), how did they come into be?

Indeed, and as I said, I wonder whether philosophy is the right mode to give that explanation. We can't know for sure, but it has the feel to me of a question that, several hundred years from now, people will be amused was considered philosophical and not scientific. — J

Perhaps. But notice that IMO it is also because it seems that knowledge itself is seen in 'all or nothing' terms. IMO it is better to think that knowledge also comes into degrees (with the extreme being something like 'perfect knowledge' and 'absolute ignorance').

To borrow a Biblical expression, "we see like through a glass, darkly". So we have a distorted perspective but we are not 'blind'.

The OP is primarily questioning the idea that the apparent linearity or successiveness of time would be evidence against mind as constitutive of reality, since mind appeared at some point in time. — J

Yes, I agree with the OP that the time objection doesn't refute the view expressed by it. However, the view leads to more questions than answers IMO (not that it is a bad thing necessarily).

The problem is that, insofar as understanding cannot work with a mere idea, re: the existential contingency of sentient beings in general, there can be no empirical resolution possible from judgements made relative to those ideas, that isn’t either thetic or antithetic, meaning in dogmatic conflict with each other relative to the idea. — Mww

Not sure of what you mean. To me the antinomy suggests that the 'Kantian' view that we can't make ontological theories about what is 'beyond the empirical' is probably false. Indeed, if one hand I have to say that science strongly suggests that rational beings in this world had a beginning and that, however, we can't make judgments about the empirical world without referencing to our perspective, it seems to me that we might have no 'certainty' about what is beyonf the empirical but we can still speculate about that.

In other words, the problematic claims are about having certainty.

But as said, I have no reason to contest evolutionary theory or geological history. I’m not providing an alternative account of the evolutionary origins of our species. I suppose you could say that what is being questioned is the support that evolutionary theory provides for philosophical naturalism. Naturalism says, after all, that the mind is of a piece with all the other elements and attributes of humans and other species, and can be treated within the same explanatory matrix. That is what is being called into question here. Which is why I'm not contesting the empirical accounts. — Wayfarer

Yes, I don't deny that. What I am saying is that, however, leaves the issue on how sentient or rational beings (depending on which model of 'transcendental idealism' one supports) came into existence. If they are the source of intelligibility of the empirical world.

In other words, I agree with you that the 'time objection' isn't fatal to this kind of views but they still seem incomplete for other reasons.

Unexpectedly, we seem to be in complete agreement that the cessation of suffering is not the point of Buddhism. — praxis

I would say I agree if 'suffering' is interpreted as 'suffering as we mean it in our culture' or something like that. Clearly, cessation of 'dukkha' is the aim of Buddhist practice. This is true whether Nirvana is merely the end of dukkha or 'something more'.

If the wave function is real and quantum states really are in a superposition until something collapses them then that doesn't entail the binary choice between either a) only consciousness can collapse the wave function or b) only something other than consciousness can collapse the wave function. — Michael

If you believe that wavefunctions are real, you have to somehow explain how physical systems can be in mutually contradictory states simultaneously. To me that is even a worse problem than saying that consciousness 'magically' (so to speak) is the only agent that 'collapses' wavefunctions.

MWI-supporters try to resolve the above problem by suggesting that the 'mutually contradictory states' are different 'branches' of the wavefunction. To me it is rather evident that either the wavefunction is an incomplete description of physical reality (e.g. hidden variable theories) or is an epistemic tool to calculate knowledge and degrees of beliefs (epistemic interpretations).

There's also c) consciousness and other things can collapse the wave function. — Michael

Ironically, the interpretations that explicitly take the view that collapse is an objective 'physical event' generally violate the predictions of quantum mechanics (GRW theories; Penrose's model etc). Anyway, even if one suggests, like Wheeler did, that other systems like, say, a computer can collapse a wavefunction, you still need to explain how a computer came into being in the first place, how to interpret scenarios like the Wigner's friend problem with wahatever things that are able to collapse the wavefunciton and so on.

To avoid these problems, MWI tells you that the universal wavefunction branches into different worlds once decoherence happens (which alone can't solve the 'measurement problem'), RQM says to you that any interaction collapses the wavefunction but sacrifices the view that there is a perspective-independent world.

Epistemic theories give consciousness the 'special' role because they view wavefunctions as something like bookkeeping devices.

But it would be appropriate for this thread, if somebody else wanted to defend his model of brain as receiver of consciousness. :smile: — Gnomon

My own view is that mind and the body are more like two 'sides of the same coin' rather than two separate things. But, again, there is so much unknown...
I'm not a fan of the 'software/hardware' analogy because it risks to lead us to either anthropomorphize machines or to think that we are 'like machines'.

Do you think I should refrain from speculation on The Philosophy Forum? — Gnomon

No, but philosophy also aims to clarity. This also means that we should be aware "what is said or implied by physics" and what is speculative (which, again, I don't think it is wrong but should be discussed without bringing up science).

I'll let you argue with Faggin --- inventor of microprocessors --- about the "role" of consciousness in quantum physics. I find his "speculation" hard to believe, but I can't deny that his detailed reasoning points in the direction that the OP found hard to accept : that Consciousness is not generated by the brain, but received from an external source. — Gnomon

As I said, I am not saying that all physicists are against the "consciousness causes collapse" view. Wigner for a while endorsed it. Von Neumann probably held it. Stapp also suggested it. Others like Andrei Linde sometimes sound like they are saying that consciousness has a causal effect on matter but I believe that they are actually endorsing an epistemic interpretation.

Honestly, I don't find Faggin's metaphysical theory unconvincing because it is too vague. There is also little evidence for that, except perhaps some controversial interpretation of NDEs. I much prefer a view that takes mind and body in a less dualistic way. Indeed, I am partial to considering the 'soul' as the 'form' of the body, i.e. mind and matter aren't two distinct substances but the different aspects of the same 'reality'. But, again, I wouldn't try to convince others by discussing scientific evidence of that.

Later, Richard Feynman, who denigrated philosophy, advised his students to "shut up and calculate" — Gnomon

And yet he himself in a lecture IIRC said that this kind of instrumentalism doesn't give us an account of scientific understanding. Personally, I believe that once you try to make sense of science you actually end up to philosophy. And, indeed, some scientific discoveries put limits also on permissible metaphysical views about reality.

For instance, Bell's theorem rejects any 'local realistic' theories under reasonable assumptions. Special and General Relativity strongly suggest that there isn't an 'universal time'. Anyway, it seems to me that generally science is useful to reject some metaphysical views rather than suggesting that others are true.

Thanks @J for the acknowledgment. However, my objection is more 'subtle' as it doesn't rely on a particular scientific theory but a more general principle, I would say. If one accepts that the existence of rational beings in this world is contingent (for whatever reason), it seems that there should be an explanation for their existence (especially if one insists that their existence had a starting point, as indeed the evolutionary theory suggests).

In other words: it seems to me that the view expressed by @Wayfarer in the OP doesn't give us an explanation of their (and our) existence. I guess that it isn't necessary to seek such an explanation and remain content with the 'antinomy'. However, the fact that the sentient/rational being's existence is contingent to me 'cries' for an explanation. And, indeed, one might even say that the 'antinomy' is a call for a resolution/explanation rather than a statement that such a resolution is impossible.

Quantum mechanics is an attempt to describe the behaviour of all matter and energy in the universe — Michael

As I said, 'energy' is a property of physical systems. So, it is better to say 'behaviour of matter'.

If consciousness exists and is a physical phenomenon then quantum mechanics can, in principle, explain the origin and behaviour of consciousness. And consciousness, like every other physical phenomenon in the universe, interacts with and affects the behaviour of its environment. So just as the physical phenomenon of electricity can "move" any surrounding matter — both at the quantum scale and the macro scale — so too can the physical phenomenon of consciousness. — Michael

This is IMO unrelated to the point I was making. I was criticizing the view that consciousness plays a causal role in the processes described by quantum mechanics. It is true that some physicists (IIRC people like Wigner, Henry Stapp probably von Neumann) supported the idea that during measurements the observation done by a conscious observer 'modifies' the quantum system. But this view assumes that (1) the wavefunction is a real thing and (2) that consciousness is what is needed to cause the wavefunction collapse. Nowadays most proponents of Copenaghen, QBism etc say that the 'collapse' is a mere update of an observer's knowledge/degree of belief and they are emphatic that the wavefunction isn't something 'real'. This BTW means that QM isn't seen as a 'description' of physical reality but a predictive tool.

We should be clear about what physical theories actually say and when 'interpretations' and 'speculations' begin.
Even in classical physics there has been some controversy about how to interpret 'forces'. Are they 'real'? Are they conceptual tools useful for us? Is a 'literal' interpretation of classical mechanics the only tenable one? And so on. But note that we are going outside 'physics' here. 'Classical mechanics' itself is silent on how we should think about the ontology of forces, physical quantities like 'energy' and so on.

And BTW, perhaps 'consciousness' can't be described by quantum mechanics even it is seen as emergent from physical processes. You have to assume a reductionistic kind of emergence to think that.
Furthermore, I have no idea how can consciousness be defined in physical terms.

It seems to me that to deny that consciousness plays a role in the behaviour of other physical phenomena is to either deny that consciousness exists or to deny that consciousness is physical (and so is some other kind of phenomena that is affected by but cannot in return affect physical phenomena). — Michael

At best here one denies that QM really can describe every process in the natural world. But in any case, it is not relevant to my point.

*3. Materialism is fundamentally a philosophy, but it strongly influences (and is often confused with) science, acting as a foundational assumption for much of natural science by asserting only matter and physical laws are real, though critics argue this stance is limiting and doesn't fully explain consciousness or subjective experience, pointing to an "explanatory gap" between matter and feeling. While materialism (the belief that only matter exists) underpins much scientific inquiry by defining what's investigable, it's a metaphysical stance, not a testable scientific theory itself, and some argue science can progress better with broader philosophical perspective — Gnomon

Wanted to add that, ironically, while you're right that 'metaphysical naturalism' isn't implied by scientific knowledge alone but it is speculative, a similar argument can be raised against those who believe that scientific knowledge 'proves' other metaphysical positions or that other metaphysical positions should 'guide' scientific activity.
This is why, incidentally, I am stressing the importance of clarify what exactly physical theories say and what is speculation.

Good OP!

The main reason why, however, I'm not convinced by this kind of argument is that the existence of individual sentient (or perhaps 'rational') beings is contingent. Given that their existence is contingent and, apparently, had a starting point (even if it isn't proper to talk about a 'before' outside their interpretative framework), it seems to me that this position gives no explanation of their existence and their coming into being.

Of course, I can't provide any scientific study that show that belief in samsara/rebirth is necessary to achieve the same mental states of those which have been reached, according to the traditions, by arhats, bodhisattvas and so on.

It should be noted that even early Buddhists debated about the nature of Nirvana, the exact meaning of 'not-self' and so on. However this is no textual evidence that I am aware of that any Buddhist school (prior to 'secular Buddhism' of the 20th century) that rejected rebirth. This tells IMO something of how 'central' the belief in samsara/rebirth was to Buddhist from ancient times to nowadays.

To me this is evidence that Buddhists in history regarded belief in the 'supernatural' as somehow essential to their faith.

In this general case I am not out to prove anything to the world, it is simply finding what will be satisfactory for my own journey. Isn't that generally how it works? — unimportant

Fine. But it seemed to me that you claimed that these kinds of beliefs are irrelevant. According to the bulk of tradition, it seems that Buddhist themselves disagreed on this.

Even the Buddha himself went around all different disciplines until he rejected them all and found his own way. — unimportant

And IIRC, it is also often taught to test Buddhist teachings as one tests the purity of gold, i.e. critically. However, IMHO it is quite interesting that despite the disagreements you find about other topics (e.g. the correct interpretation of 'not-self', Nirvana, how to conceive the reality of 'aggregates' and so on), it seems that the various schools agreed on samsara and rebirth. This doesn't necessarily mean that they are right but I believe that one should reflect on this agreement without trying to accept easy answers like "they simply wanted to impose a belief on others to get power" or something.

There is a Mahāyāna sutra that explicitly rejects that idea. — Wayfarer

Yeah.

Such an idea is also rejected in the traditional Theravada. In one of my earlier posts, I referenced to the paper "Anatta and Nibbana" by Nyanaponika Thera which quotes post-canonical sources that explicitly rejected the idea. Here some escerpts from the commentary to the Visuddhimagga:

Now, in the ultimate sense the existingness of the Nibbāna-element has been demonstrated by the Fully Enlightened One, compassionate for the whole world, by many sutta passages, such as “Dhammas without condition,” “Unformed dhammas” (see Dhammasaṅgaṇī, Abhidhamma Piṭaka); “Bhikkhus, there is that sphere (āyatana) where neither earth•” (Udāna 71); “This state is very hard to see, that is to say, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all substance of becoming” (DN 14; MN 26); “Bhikkhus, I shall teach you the unformed and the way leading to the unformed” (SN 43:12) and so on; and in this sutta, “Bhikkhus, there, is an unborn • “ (Udāna 73) •

...
If Nibbāna were mere non-existence, it could not be described by terms such as “profound,” etc.; [5] or as “the unformed, etc; or as “kammically neutral, without condition, unincluded,” — commentary to the Visuddhimagga, Dhammapala, translated by Ven Nyanamoli and Nyanaponika

It is significant that these authoratitive post-canonical texts took the pain to reject the "Nirvana as mere non-existence/absence" idea.

Also, even in the Theravada canonical Abhidhamma there is one text that describes the 'permanence' of Nirvana in the same way as the permanence of the 'self' of non-Buddhists.

If you assert that the material-aggregate retains its materiality, you must admit that the material-aggregate is permanent, persistent, eternal, not subject to change. You know that the opposite is true; hence it should not be said that materiality is retained.

Nibbāna does not abandon its state as Nibbāna—by this we mean Nibbāna is permanent, persistent, eternal, not subject to change. And you ought to mean this, too, in the case of material-aggregate, if you say that the latter does not abandon its materiality. — Kathavatthu 1.6, Shwe Zan Aung, C.A.F. Rhys Davids translation

(The context of this excerpt is a debate between the precursor school of the modern Theravada and the 'Sarvastivada' school, a school that endorsed the idea that in some sense the 'psycho-physical' aggregates existed in all times and they are said to be impermanent because their activity is transitory. Note that the Theravada rejects such kind of view of the permanence of the 'aggregates' but at the same time accepts the idea that Nibbbana/Nirvana is indeed 'permanent, eternal' erc.)

It is difficult, in my opinion, to read the above description of Nirvana as a 'mere absence'.

But anyway, the OP here is convinced that one's own views about reality do not matter for achievements. So, these points are irrelevant to them like those about rebirth.

In a technical "scientistic" context, computer software does not work like the human mind. But in a philosophical (metaphorical) context, the human mind's relation to the brain is analogous to the software of a computer. Can you accept that notion, for the sake of philosophical reasoning? :chin: — Gnomon

Yes and No. Yes, because in some sense the 'hardware-software' two different 'aspects' of a computer. However, 'no' because it suggests that human minds and computer softwares are more similar than what they are. It doesn't seem the case that computers have qualitative experiences and deliberation.

For example, Einstein was a theoretical scientist — Gnomon

Nobody disputes that. But like other theoretical physicists, Einstein introduced theories that were able to predict the results of past and future experiments.

When you say, "Many physicists would deny that the 'mind' has some kind of special role."*2, you are ignoring the many scientists (Kristof Koch, et al) who affirm that the human mind is unique in nature. Hence, the "hard problem" of science — Gnomon

Here's the problem of 'mixing' concepts of different contexts. Yes, the 'hard problem' is very relevant. But there is no compelling evidence that 'consciousness' has a special role in quantum mechanics. And even those who does give consciousness some kind of 'role' in quantum mechanics generally say that consciousness doesn't 'do' anything to physical reality. Rather, QM is a tool that is used to predict how the knowledge/beliefs of observers evolve in time.

It is good to be aware of that before taking speculation as 'scientific evidence'.

Rebirth has to do with the supposed structure or metaphysics of suffering. I don't understand why that would be motivational. If nirvana is the carrot, suffering itself is the stick. — praxis

Ok, yes, a famous 'definition' of Nirvana is the 'cessation of suffering'. An early Buddhist school, the Sautrantika, apparently believed that it was just that, nothing 'more'. Assuming that they were right and that 'Nirvana without remaineder' de facto coincides with oblivion, there is no 'transcendent' goal there.

So, if the above conception of Nirvana is right (and this is a big 'if'), you need to show that one achieve the same results of 'traditional Buddhists' with "escaping the suffering of this present life" as a sufficient motivator. Given the textual evidence that apparently no Buddhist tradition (with the exception perhaps of 'secular Buddhism' started in the 20th century) endorsed such an idea, it is indeed a big claim.

So, how can we test such a hypothesis. The OP apparently thinks that "scientific evidence" + "some comparative religion studies" showed once for all that it is indeed possible to achieve the same states of 'enlightenment' of the Buddhist traditions without agreeing with their belief. Fine. However, are we sure about that?

You are ignoring again that evidence I have highlighted that many other religious disciplines reach similar levels of transcendence of the physical world yet don't believe in rebirth. — unimportant

I didn't ignore those evidence.I simply do not see them as convincing evidence that those experience are the same, not just similar.

Anyway, it seems that you have already made up your mind about these things. So, fair enough, I guess.

I thought you might be. Perhaps my response was clumsy. I must confess I didn't give a thought to your possible religious beliefs. If I offended you, I apologize. — Ludwig V

As I said, I was joking. So no offence. No need to worry or apologize. However, unfortunately, it is easy to get misunderstanding in written medias.

Thanks. This is very helpful. Mind you, I'm not entirely sure that we are lucky to be alive. Some people think that life is a bit of a curse. — Ludwig V

I get that. But I was referring to being lucky about the fact that our strategies for survival, scientific models 'work'. But I think you understood.

I'm finding it very hard to envisage the possibility that there may be no intelligible structure in the world. It seems to me that the fact that we survive and find our way about seems to me to demonstrate that there is. So, for me, there is no "if there is an intelligible structure...", only "Given that there is an intelligible structure..." — Ludwig V

Yes, I agree. But note that generally 'metaphysics' is, so to speak, 'chastised' for that. To make a few examples, 'epistemic idealists', 'transcendental idealists', some phenomenologists etc claim that we have no possibility to know "how the world is" because all we know is a representation ordered by our own cognitive apparatus or even deny that the the world has an intelligible structure. How the world 'is' independent from that is unanswerable because we can't get out from our own perspective. I believe that there is a truth in there but at the same time, they overreach. We might have no 'certain knowledge' but I believe we can make 'reasonable speculations'.
Indeed, the fact that our strategies 'work' suggest that we have some knowledge of the 'world independent from us'.

Is there such a thing as an unintelligible structure? If there's a structure, it will be intelligible. If it's not intelligible, it won't be a structure. — Ludwig V

:up: and if there's no structure, how could sentient beings with cognitive apparatuses come into being?

Why do you think a mindless world might not be intelligible? — Ludwig V

Because, it has no reason (I am using this word without any reference to 'purpose' here) to be intelligible, otherwise. It might be intelligible, yes, but I don't think there is any need for that. And yet, it seems that it is. It could be a complete 'chaos' and yet it is ordered. My question is: why is it so?
My own speculative answer is that even what we call 'mindless', 'inanimate' matter has a structure because it derives from a 'Principle' of both 'being' and 'intelligibility' (and this IMO is an 'argument' - speculative argument, not a 'proof' - of the existence of a 'Divine Mind').

Your description of "mindless" and "blind" hints that you think there is some impossibility or unlikelihood of that happening by itself, as it were. Am I right? Why do you think that? — Ludwig V

The fact that the arising of life and our species (i.e. a specie that can use reason) isn't impossible is for me something that is cause of wonder.

For me, "practice" is too broad a brush to be meaningful here. Religious practice has many facets/goals – I think more than most people realize. For instance, it may be fair to say that people have a desire for meaning in their lives and religious practice may help fulfill that need. Religious practice can help attain that state of fulfillment. They achieve that goal regardless of their state of *enlightenment*... and regardless of their ability to endure pain with composure. — praxis

This might be true but the original question was something like "is it possible to attain the same 'achievements' even if I do not believe in what Buddhists have always believed?".

IMO there are good arguments that the answer is 'no'. It is possible that the 'worldview' we have conditions our motivations while we 'practice' and perhaps even the idea we have about the goal we seek conditions the way we 'practice'. Do these factors have no importance when we seek to attain some kind of goals? Is the motivation behind our own practice irrelevant for our ability to reach the goal?

For instance, consider this Pali sutta:

“Venerable sir, if one’s clothes or head were ablaze, to extinguish one’s blazing clothes or head one should arouse extraordinary desire, make an extraordinary effort, stir up zeal and enthusiasm, be unremitting, and exercise mindfulness and clear comprehension.”

“Bhikkhus, one might look on equanimously at one’s blazing clothes or head, paying no attention to them, but so long as one has not made the breakthrough to the Four Noble Truths as they really are, in order to make the breakthrough one should arouse extraordinary desire, make an extraordinary effort, stir up zeal and enthusiasm, be unremitting, and exercise mindfulness and clear comprehension. What four? The noble truth of suffering … the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering. — SN 56.34, Bhikkhu Bodhi translation

If one doesn't believe in rebirth, can one reach the same level of motivation? Or is the above sutta wrong and such motivation isn't necessary?

The 'traditionalist' answer would be 'no' to both questions. Clearly, one is free to try to reach the same level of, say, 'equanimity' that is generally abscribed to arhats or 'enlightened bodhisattvas'. So, either one has convincing arguments to show that the traditional answer is wrong or, indeed, one has to see for oneself.

Why I would say that you are afraid of crossing that line in the sand? It's because you repeatedly warn me to be "careful". But I don't accept that arbitrary division of Philosophy into Nature and Supernature. For me, it's all Science and all Philosophy, and Nature includes both Mind and Matter, both flesh and emotions. The human Mind (consciousness, "soul", software) seems to be a product of eons of material evolution. So the study of the intangible, immaterial aspects of Nature should not be taboo for Science or Philosophy*1. — Gnomon

My 'suggestions' do not come from a 'scientistic' perspective or anything like that. Rather, they come from a desire to clarify the use of concepts in their own context. To make another example, the 'software' of a computer isn't like our mind, in my opinion. For instance, arguably, a very complex 'mechanical calculator' could perform the tasks 'electronic computers' do. They are both algorithmic. I do not think that there is sufficient evidence to say that our minds are also algorithmic (in fact, our experience of 'deliberation' makes quite difficult to believe they are IMO).

Physics may try to limit its subject matter to Matter only. But Quantum Physics made that policy of apartheid very difficult*2. So, I don't accept that, no longer valid, distinction between Matter Science and Mind Science. Which is why I label my personal philosophy as BothAnd*3. :smile: — Gnomon

Again, I believe it is useful to clarify where the 'science' stops and where 'philosophy' begins. Many physicists would deny that the 'mind' has some kind of special role. And those who do assign a role to the 'observer' generally believe that the role is purely epistemic, i.e. quantum mechanics is more like a recipe to compute how the knowledge or beliefs of an observer about a physical system evolve rather than how the physical system evolves. Other interpretations like 'many worlds', 'de Broglie-Bohm', 'relational interpretation', even some strands of 'Copenaghen' and so on do not treat 'conscious observers' as 'special'. The problem with all these interpretations is that there is no reliable experimental way to falsify one or another. So, at the purely scientific level they are equivalent. In any case, it is clear that QM doesn't force a special, 'causal' role of the 'mind' on 'matter'. Indeed, that seems an unwarranted speculation. However, epistemic interpretations IMO have their merit but, being epistemic, they do not claim to give us a 'picture' of "how the world is in itself".

They, however, all agree that QM is a very useful recipe to predict the results of past and future measurements and its usefulness for applications. This might be the 'scientific consensus'. I believe that it is best to be clear about this before claiming that 'QM' is 'evidence beyond doubt' for or against any particular metaphysical view.

This part makes sense. :up: — praxis

:up:

This is IMO central. If it isn't just an intellectual understanding, motivations behind why one practices become relevant. Indeed, the goal we set to ourselves when we do something conditions the way we do a determinate action.

While I believe that nothing prevents a practitioner to practice even if they don't believe in rebirth, Nirvana and so on, it is still relevant that you have an immense amount of witnesses in the Buddhist traditions that tells you, instead, that believing in rebirth is something central. So, perhaps, they are right. Maybe don't, but you should have good arguments to show that someone that doesn't have the same motivations can get to the same state.

I'm not disappointed at all. Many people have beliefs of this kind that I do not share. You, in your turn, may be disappointed to learn that I have never been able to sign up to any doctrine of this kind - mostly because I find it too hard to make sense of them. For purposes of classification, I call myself an agnostic. I think we can co-exist. — Ludwig V

I was joking but it seemed to me that your use of adverbs like 'clearly' meant that it was impossible for you that I could be a panentheist :smile:

I don't understand what you are asking for. — Ludwig V

Consider this analogy. Alice every time that plays a lottery, wins. Let's say that this reapeats for 10 times.

Our instinct is: it can't be "just a coincidence". We want an explanation of "what is really going on". Perhaps, we discover that the lottery system is rigged in her favour, with or without her knowledge. And then we discover how it is rigged and we can make an explanation of why she is winning.
However, someone else might just say: "well, it is unlikely but it isn't impossible. The game works as it should, Alice is just very, very, very lucky.".

So, here's the point. If, for instance, the mathematical structure of our physica models doesn't 'reflect' an intelligible structure of the "physical world as it is", our success becomes difficult to explain. We might just be lucky: there is no intelligible structure but somehow we manage to make models that work. Or there is an intelligible structure which is 'reflected' (albeit imperfectly) into our models that allows us to make successful predictions.

"The physical world seems intelligible" means, to me, that we can understand the physical world. You use the word "seems" which suggests that you think that might not be the case. I agree that we do not understand it completely. Is that what you mean? I can't see what it might mean to say that our partial understanding is an complete illusion, as opposed to partly wrong. — Ludwig V

I agree with you here. However, notice that we have no 'guarantee', i.e. no 'absolute certainty', that we understand the world, even imperfectly.

However, if you agree with me and there is an intelligible structure in the physical world, things get interesting.

Conscious beings evolved in the physical world, and evolved the means for understanding that world. If those means had failed to understand the physical world, our species would likely have died out long ago. No? — Ludwig V

Yes, but why should a 'mindless world' be intelligible at all? If conscious beings - and even more rational beings - are completely accidental product of 'blind' processes of a 'mindless world', why would such a world have a structure that can be truly (even if imperfectly) understood by them?