The idea that the self = nirvana, or that once the defilements are done away with, what is left is pure goodness and joy, is an idea that can be found in some Buddhist circles (esp. in Mahayana, and modern developments of Buddhism), but to the best of my knowledge, it has no support in the Pali Canon (ie. the text that is generally considered the authoritative text of what the Buddha taught). — baker

Right. But let's take the matter further, and in this, I am only interested in how we interpret something like this, and have limited regard for what the Buddha actually said. (BUt then, as I read through the Pali canon I find some very odd references that quite absurd. Why, I wonder, should this original doctrine hold sway?) Go ahead and empty the self of its contents I like this on "annihilation":

There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no priests or contemplatives who, faring rightly and practicing rightly, proclaim this world and the next after having directly known and realized it for themselves. A person is a composite of four primary elements. At death, the earth (in the body) returns to and merges with the (external) earth-substance. The fire returns to and merges with the external fire-substance. The liquid returns to and merges with the external liquid-substance. The wind returns to and merges with the external wind-substance. The sense-faculties scatter into space. Four men, with the bier as the fifth, carry the corpse. Its eulogies are sounded only as far as the charnel ground. The bones turn pigeon-colored. The offerings end in ashes. Generosity is taught by idiots. The words of those who speak of existence after death are false, empty chatter. With the break-up of the body, the wise and the foolish alike are annihilated, destroyed. They do not exist after death.'

It doesn't go far enough, does it? If you follow through on this annihilation, you must deny existence to anything language can make into an object, or reify by mental acts like gathering particulars under a heading, for a thoroughgoing annihilation denies all knowledge claims, for all such claims attempt to categorize the world. To think at all is to entertain a kind of illusion. Thus, all this talk about the four elements, wind, bones and ashes, these are not primordial things that stand above father and mother. There is no "person".

I prefer the prajnaparamita:

Therefore, in emptiness no form, no feelings,
perceptions, impulses, consciousness.
No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind;
no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch,
no object of mind;
no realm of eyes
and so forth until no realm of mind consciousness.

This is annihilation, and the method is one of apophatic philosophy. My thoughts are that once the constructed self is eliminated, what remains is not nothing, but a depth of existence and well being that goes entirely beyond the pragmatic existence of everyday living. Nirvana, throughout the literature, confirms this.

My thoughts are that once the constructed self is eliminated, what remains is not nothing, but a depth of existence and well being that goes entirely beyond the pragmatic existence of everyday living. Nirvana, throughout the literature, confirms this. — Constance

That is a very accurate statement you've made. You've just slammed the question of self and reality into the stands.

Nirvana is a related topic that deals with the extinguishment of the personality. Complete nirvana, more officially called "Fifth Nirvana," is the final extinguishment.

Another self-revealing attainment is something called "liberation unleashed." It is the removal of the I-thought in the pineal. It could be called the transcendence of the "objective ego."

Another "ego" (2nd ego) could be considered to be any form of judgment of good or not good. This ego leaves one unclear and cloudy in terms of their assessment of their reality.

One last "ego" (3rd ego) is the arrangement of personal nucleus around self-pride and the achievements and comparative betterment that attenuate a high view of oneself. This self is transcended as the 8th stage of the 10 oxherding pictures where the mandala of experience is an empty circle. The previous stage in preparation is the transcending of the ox of independent doership, The bull gives way as stream-entry is engaged and all action is one action.

Nirvana is a related topic that deals with the extinguishment of the personality. Complete nirvana, more officially called "Fifth Nirvana," is the final extinguishment. — eduardo

You know, there may be truth in all of this, but I cannot affirm beyond what I have been able to understand myself. Eastern philosophy is revelatory and it is not about faith, but actual encounter. As for me, I am what you could call a threshold person, meaning when I meditate, the conceptual grip the world generally has on me slips readily away, and there is in the interiority of my self a kind of rising presence of something entirely other than normal reality. The world loses its definition, its familiarity, its knowledge assumptions, and the whole yields to something extraordinary, unnamable, but unmistakable.
You find this in the Western apophatic literature as well. See Meister Eckhart, who prays to God to be rid of God, or pseudo Dionysus the Areopagite's Cloud of Knowing. The final extinguishment? I imagine
the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức had achieved this when he set himself on fire. I do wonder what it must have been like to live inside that world where pain could be such a distant event.

Why, I wonder, should this original doctrine hold sway? — Constance

Why do you quote or cite anything, instead of just making stuff up and ascribe it to another person?

Go ahead and empty the self of its contents I like this on "annihilation":

There is no this world, no next world, no mother, no father, no spontaneously reborn beings; no priests or contemplatives who, faring rightly and practicing rightly, proclaim this world and the next after having directly known and realized it for themselves.
/..../
It doesn't go far enough, does it?

Hold your horses!



Do you believe that what you quoted there is Buddhist doctrine??

What you quoted there is in the Pali Canon listed as a standard example of wrong view, in contrast to Right View.
Annihilationism is wrong view.

This is annihilation, and the method is one of apophatic philosophy. My thoughts are that once the constructed self is eliminated, what remains is not nothing, but a depth of existence and well being that goes entirely beyond the pragmatic existence of everyday living. Nirvana, throughout the literature, confirms this.

This is Mahayana doctrine. Why choose Mahayana over the Pali Canon? Can you explain?

This is Mahayana doctrine. Why choose Mahayana over the Pali Canon? Can you explain? — baker

As with any doctrine, one can either dogmatically receive it, then take this as an authoritative representation , disseminate what it says, learn by rote the utterances, divide into schools of thought, and call oneself a scholar. Or, one can talk the matter itself seriously, which means, while having respect for ancient ideas and those who founded them, realizing that these are interpretations of their own experiences and have no fixed, timeless say in the matters of determining what meditation is about, its nature and meaning, its revealed actualities.

What Buddhism is really about should never, ever be taken dogmatically, as a mere historical set of "facts". I don't choose Mahayana over Hinayana. These are mere classificatory distinctions that can be useful for referencing purposes, but to talk about what is essentially Buddhism, well, this takes one into the interesting interpretative inquiries: what is it that is disclosed in the interiority of the self when one meditates? How do we fit this into religious and philosophical paradigms? In the suspension of normal, spontaneous interpretative ideas, does Husserl's phenomenological reduction inform us in any interesting ways in understanding the meditative experience? And so on.

Case in point is your link to the right view. I do like this:

[The Buddha:] "By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.

There is a striking resemblance here to post modern thinking that denies a center to any proposition. Husserl's epoche, whereby all schools of thought are in abeyance, as is all naturalistic knowledge claims (so called). Many consider the religious dimension of this, reminiscent of Kierkegaard's "eternal present" which has a fundamental place in existential thinking across the board.

"Nonexistence" is simply an intruding conceptualization that has its meaning bound to a network of meanings, and to invoke such a term transforms a, call it "pure" perceptual event (very disputatious idea), into an apperceptive event, binding the understanding to logic and language, and here is where the most challenging part of meditation lies: in the undoing of the interpretative grip one's earliest training in the world has on one. Not to see a house AS a house, or to take up the world AS anything.

Why do you quote or cite anything, instead of just making stuff up and ascribe it to another person? — baker

Because I am not arguing about who said what, when or where. I care little for this. I only care about ideas and how they come into play in understanding the world and the rest is incidental. Now if I had the job of teaching this, it would be the same as it would be for Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Walt Whitman, Wordsworth, or anyone: incidental facts become part of the lecture.

Don't be silly. No one is making things up.

I suppose you're on the right track on this score. If the self is nowhere as important as in ethics and its emphasis on [moral] responsibility, an exploration into metaethics might provide valuable insights on what the self is.

Metaethics investigates the meanings of moral terms, the nature of ethical judgments, and the different kinds of moral arguments and one near-universal moral principle that all people seem to subscribe to is the golden rule - do unto others as you'd like others to do unto you - and my hunch is that's a good place to start.

As with any doctrine, one can either dogmatically receive it, then take this as an authoritative representation , disseminate what it says, learn by rote the utterances, divide into schools of thought, and call oneself a scholar. Or, one can talk the matter itself seriously, which means, while having respect for ancient ideas and those who founded them, realizing that these are interpretations of their own experiences and have no fixed, timeless say in the matters of determining what meditation is about, its nature and meaning, its revealed actualities. — Constance

This is a false dichotomy.

If someone wants to make up their own idea of enlightenment and the path toward it, that's their thing, and they have the freedom to do so. But it is misleading, to say the least, to then call this "Buddhism" or "what the Buddha really taught".

Because I am not arguing about who said what, when or where. I care little for this.

The point is that the teachings in the Pali Canon are regarded as being taught by an enlightened being, and a unique one at that, someone who is categorically different than an ordinary person. As such, it is assumed that the teachings in those texts contain insights that an ordinary person simply cannot have.

Later texts are taught by someone other than the Buddha, by people who may not even be enlightened. As such, they aren't assumed to have such insight and such value as those by the Rightfully Self-Enlightened One.

I only care about ideas and how they come into play in understanding the world and the rest is incidental. Now if I had the job of teaching this, it would be the same as it would be for Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Walt Whitman, Wordsworth, or anyone: incidental facts become part of the lecture.

You're missing the point. The Buddhist teachings in the Pali Canon aren't just "some more philosophy; yet another philosophical text"; that is, the texts themselves claim to be more than that.

Whether you accept them to be such is up to you. But when a text itself makes such claims about itself, it's not clear how come people so often ignore that bit and just go on reading it as if it was yet another text.

To give another example: If a text starts with, "These words were dictated to me by the Holy Spirit", do you just ignore this and other such references in the text, and try to independently establish whether what the text says is true or relevant or not?

I think it would be silly, to say the least, to take such self-referential, meta-textual claims at face value (or to try to establish whether they are true or not). But I also think it is wrong to ignore them. If a text basically makes the meta-textual claim about itself that amounts to, "This is not yet another philosophical text, and it shouldn't be read as such" -- then this is something I take seriously. That doesn't mean I believe what the text says, but it does mean I don't treat it as yet another philosophical text. This is what it means to recognize the genre of a text: a religious text is in some vital ways different and should be read differently than a philosophical or scientific or literary text.

Don't be silly. No one is making things up.

You're not serious.


What amazes me the most in relation to Buddhism is how ready people are to bastardize it. Orignally, in the Pali Canon, a path of practice toward enlightenment is layed out, in considerable detail. But despite that, so many people make up their own ideas of enlightenment, but nevertheless believe they are legitimized by the Buddha, and even call those ideas "Buddhist."

Oh, and this:

I don't choose Mahayana over Hinayana. — Constance

To use the H-word, one must either be a Mahayani (supremacist), or someone who doesn't know what it means and how it is used in Buddhism.

If someone wants to make up their own idea of enlightenment and the path toward it, that's their thing, and they have the freedom to do so. But it is misleading, to say the least, to then call this "Buddhism" or "what the Buddha really taught". — baker

What did Kant "really" teach? If he were here to tell you, would his thought be any less disputatious? The "real" Kant is, of course, a matter of scholarly work, but to the extent the object is to stay true to Kant exclusively, then the matter is not philosophical at all, for it is not interpretative, but historical. But then, Kant, in everything he said being philosophical, taken as it is, is inherently indeterminate, so the real Kant is really no more than a multitude of open questions.

This is what Buddhism is. Everything the Buddha said begs many questions, which is why it continues on as an open concept. Taken as a path of liberation, even, a practical method, it still is open. I would say as with Kant, even if the Buddha stood before us and told us exactly what he meant, it would still remain just as conceptually open as it is now.

The point is that the teachings in the Pali Canon are regarded as being taught by an enlightened being, and a unique one at that, someone who is categorically different than an ordinary person. As such, it is assumed that the teachings in those texts contain insights that an ordinary person simply cannot have. — baker

Insights! Of course, what else? Insights into what to do and how to regard the world. A foundation that provided, as I see it, the most important contribution to human thinking ever. But I would say in the event of meditation, all "schools" are in abeyance, especially when the significant changes occur in the way one's everydayness is apprehended. There comes a point, I do not argue but simply relate, at which attachments are genuinely loosened, and the world becomes, not to put too fine a point on it, a different place altogether. Schooled thinking has nothing to do with this, but it has been merely tool all along, a tool of second guessing interpretations and undoing familiarity held in place by pervasive conceptual strongholds acquired since childhood. It is at the conceptual level in the structures of the world itself that detachments have to be finally undone.

Later texts are taught by someone other than the Buddha, by people who may not even be enlightened. As such, they aren't assumed to have such insight and such value as those by the Rightfully Self-Enlightened One. — baker

Where is the proof? In the pudding. One has to read and confirm for oneself.

You're missing the point. The Buddhist teachings in the Pali Canon aren't just "some more philosophy; yet another philosophical text"; that is, the texts themselves claim to be more than that.

Whether you accept them to be such is up to you. But when a text itself makes such claims about itself, it's not clear how come people so often ignore that bit and just go on reading it as if it was yet another text. — baker

I agree, it is not just some more philosophy, rather, it is THE philosophy! But look at it like this: Buddhism's great contribution is that is provides a practical guide to liberation, but such a concept is absolutely open, it presents a landscape of fascinating theo-philosophical thought, and there is so much in this that takes the matter of liberation into extraordinary fields of inquiry.

What amazes me the most in relation to Buddhism is how ready people are to bastardize it. Orignally, in the Pali Canon, a path of practice toward enlightenment is layed out, in considerable detail. But despite that, so many people make up their own ideas of enlightenment, but nevertheless believe they are legitimized by the Buddha, and even call those ideas "Buddhist." — baker

I disagree. Buddhism laid out clearly as a method in achieve liberation is not the only way to achieve liberation. And you seem to think he was the only one ever to be "enlightened". I mean, what is enlightenment such that he was the only one and only his utterances make the right way? I've read the four noble truths and find them simply superfluous, not wrong, but certainly not exclusively right. They are extraneous to the essential idea: liberation.

What did Kant "really" teach? If he were here to tell you, would his thought be any less disputatious? — Constance

Why disputatious??

This is what Buddhism is. Everything the Buddha said begs many questions, which is why it continues on as an open concept. Taken as a path of liberation, even, a practical method, it still is open. I would say as with Kant, even if the Buddha stood before us and told us exactly what he meant, it would still remain just as conceptually open as it is now.

This is the thinking of someone who is not a Buddhist.

Where is the proof? In the pudding. One has to read and confirm for oneself.

That's a bizarre claim to make in relation to a religious text.
Religion is dogma to which one is supposed to align oneself. It's not something to discover, or verify.

Buddhism's great contribution is that is provides a practical guide to liberation, but such a concept is absolutely open, it presents a landscape of fascinating theo-philosophical thought, and there is so much in this that takes the matter of liberation into extraordinary fields of inquiry.

*sigh*

I disagree. Buddhism laid out clearly as a method in achieve liberation is not the only way to achieve liberation.

That's your claim. I neither agree nor disagree with it.
What proof do you have that there is more than one way to achieve liberation? As in, liberation as it is defined in the early Buddhist texts?

And you seem to think he was the only one ever to be "enlightened".

I'm saying that in early Buddhist texts, he is called the Rightfully Self-Awakened One, and Buddhists texts say there can be only one such being per one cosmic entity of time. That's all I'm saying.

I've read the four noble truths and find them simply superfluous, not wrong, but certainly not exclusively right. They are extraneous to the essential idea: liberation.

*sigh*
There are all kinds of ideas of what "liberation" is.
Theravadans have their own idea of what liberation is.
Mahayanis have their own idea of what liberation is.
Hindus have about a dozen ideas of what liberation is.
California Buddhists have their own idea of what liberation is.
Western psychologists have their own idea of what liberation is.
Every meth head has their own idea of what liberation is.

But these ideas of liberation are not all the same. Not all paths lead to the same goal. All things that are called "liberation" aren't the same. You're arguing for an equivocation.

Why disputatious?? — baker

The point is that such things are by their very nature not determinate. The language in play is open.

This is the thinking of someone who is not a Buddhist. — baker

Where do you think Buddha got it? Lived in a culture that laid out possibilities, and he practiced, observed, thought. His final words have no definitive claim on the very thing he brought forth. Buddhism is NOT a doctrine.

That's a bizarre claim to make in relation to a religious text.
Religion is dogma to which one is supposed to align oneself. It's not something to discover, or verify. — baker

Sorry, this is most emphatically wrong.

That's your claim. I neither agree nor disagree with it.
What proof do you have that there is more than one way to achieve liberation? As in, liberation as it is defined in the early Buddhist texts? — baker

My claim? All religion is about liberation, and the question of how this can be reasonably discussed depends entirely on what is disclosed for the individual in the events of deep meditation. The less one can do this, the more s/he depends on others for understanding. the better one can do this, the less one relies on others, and once this latter is realized, methodological texts fall away. They were just heuristics all along.

I'm saying that in early Buddhist texts, he is called the Rightfully Self-Awakened One, and Buddhists texts say there can be only one such being per one cosmic entity of time. That's all I'm saying. — baker

But what does this even mean if the notion of being awakened is not clear in one's own experience. It becomes a mere fiction, something alien and distant. How can the concept have any meaning at all like this?

There are all kinds of ideas of what "liberation" is.
Theravadans have their own idea of what liberation is.
Mahayanis have their own idea of what liberation is.
Hindus have about a dozen ideas of what liberation is.
California Buddhists have their own idea of what liberation is.
Western psychologists have their own idea of what liberation is.
Every meth head has their own idea of what liberation is.

But these ideas of liberation are not all the same. Not all paths lead to the same goal. All things that are called "liberation" aren't the same. You're arguing for an equivocation. — baker

But these all vanish when one sits quietly and breaks free from the conceptual hold of the world. To see objects not as objects, but to bring no distinctions into play at the level spontaneous perception, and what was once a divided world becomes a profound unity. In this condition, and approaching it, one realizes that the only talk that can matter is that which acknowledges that beneath experience there is a foundation that is entirely Other than the everydayness of things. It intimates its own consummation and in this one realizes that the there is only one thing that is sought beneath the multitude of spiritual and otherwise ambitions. Not a multitude. Gautama Siddhartha knew this, I believe. He knew that there was this singular, consummatory event for all, and that is was not far and away, but right there, in our midst, unassailable and perfect, and we know what this is, for we see it in part played out in our lives, in loving relationships, in romantic visions, in childhood innocence, in a yearning for what we call God, an intimation of what was realized fully, perhaps, 2500 years ago.

I think if the Buddha were here with us now, he would agree: all of our endeavors are at the most basic level, a yearning for this extraordinary one thing. I say, the "end" in both senses of the term, of philosophy is to narrow theory in order to bring this into the fullest expression. Post Heideggarian French theology, Jean luc Marion, Michell Henry, Emanuel Levinas, then there is Husserl and Eugene Fink's Sixth Meditation, And John Caputo Apophatic thinking and Derrida, and so many others who see that theory has come to a dramatic point where the ineffability of the world enters the world! Odd thing to say, but I believe it is the mind reaching out to affirm the essential Buddhist thesis, which is that language will not consummate the self, Truth is not propositional, but what you might call meta-affective.

I think if the Buddha were here with us now, he would agree: all of our endeavors are at the most basic level, a yearning for this extraordinary one thing. — Constance

Based on what do you think that??

What have you heard about the Buddha, and which can reasonably be ascribed to the Buddha, that makes you think the above?

Hello Constance @ all,
This is my first post to this forum.
The Self is a topic that interests me a lot this is why I got in here reading your comments.
I see your approach is quite influenced by oriental philosophy that I don't know very well. I'm more a naturalist-cognitivist so my perspective of the Self comes from a different angle what I think could be enriching. Some times different perspectives or beliefs generate frictions or harm other's sensitivity, this is not my intention at all and let me know if you think this post is not convenient for your debate.
I'll post here my manifesto on the Self that I have created that explains my view and I think could be interesting.
Your immediate reaction could be, as mine is some times..."we're talking different" things here! So an interesting debate could be : how would you call then my "Self" or how would I call yours :-).

The ontology of the Self, a manifesto

The self is a phenomena resulting of a cognitive process within the brain that generates the "I", a self-referenced mental-object within brain’s mental "model of the world". The "I" is a representation of the Subject as Being, as owner, creator, agent and receptor of the intentionality of its mental objects. The linguistic representation of the “I” is not needed for a Self to happen.
The mental raise of the self: The mental “model-of-the-world” is a representational mirror of the external reality, a second mental mirror comes from the mental representation of “the others” that makes the self to happen/emerge when the mental process realizes the “invariants” between the other and I (confronting both mirrors). Two confronted mental mirrors that create the self’s singularity.
The Self bio-basis: The self process is confined to synchronous integrated information exchange activity between the cortex pre-frontal ventro-median area and the temporal and parietal (praecuneus) lobes.
Self and experience: The self is not required for experience to happen or to be communicated. A conscious and an unconscious brain can be able to communicate its emotions without being self-conscious, i.e. reflex actions.
Self and time: The Self process "emerges" gradually as our brain matures and as we grow as individuals in a proper stimulating cultural context.
The Self is not something permanent, it dissolves gradually when we address our attention to specific tasks and/or non-referential thoughts. It dissolves and disappear as well when we sleep or die,
The self and evolution: The self makes us more adaptive and effective in our survival and homeostatic goals as a species.
As consciousness, the Self enables even more complex (larger, longer, more realistic and more integrated) models-of-the-world as it enables, i.e., evaluating our judgments against the other’s.
Self and memory: Access to memories is necessary for the self to happen. More accurate and longer memories that contain external descriptions of the world (i.e. science) the more empowered the self is.
Self and society: The main role of the Self is played in society, when interacting with others: it enriches the culture of the societies generating richer cultural models-of-the world. It reinforces the social cohesion via a stronger integration of the individual.
The self enables the feeling of self-confidence that evaluates our judgements, our decisions and actions so that can be self improved or communicated to others seeking improvement.
Self and the existential delusion: The Self is necessary for the emergence of the concepts of "infinite" and "finite" that foster the generation of fear, anxiety and depression as the "model-of-the-world" it generates is much larger than himself. This idea of confinement gets in conflict with its primordial instinct of survival. Systems of believes that sustain a teleological illusion mitigate these negative feelings (religions, intelligent design, spiritualism, mysticism,...).

What have you heard about the Buddha, and which can reasonably be ascribed to the Buddha, that makes you think the above? — baker

Your link provides:
"And what is right view? Knowledge with regard to stress, knowledge with regard to the origination of stress, knowledge with regard to the cessation of stress, knowledge with regard to the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress: This is called right view."

I don't see Buddhism as subsuming the meditative event; I see meditation subsuming Buddhism. Meditation is the practical foundation to achieving liberation and enlightenment, and so the question that lords over all, if we are going to risk being assaulted by the Zen master's fan by thinking about what demands quietude, what is meditation as a method of liberation.? And this begs questions like, what is liberation, liberation from what? and to what? If one is going to talk about the meaning of Buddhism, one must looks to its concepts, but most seem to think there is nothing to say. This is because they don't read phenomenology.

If you want to say the true teachings of Buddhism lies with the study of the Pali canon, I would say, true? What does this mean? Do you mean historically, categorially? Then perhaps you can talk like this. By I quickly add the Pali canon bows low to the unfolding event in the deep meditative state, and a determination of this state looks to the phenomenological structures of experience.

Take "The Right View" from your link:

"And what is right view? Knowledge with regard to stress, knowledge with regard to the origination of stress, knowledge with regard to the cessation of stress, knowledge with regard to the way of practice leading to the cessation of stress: This is called right view."


What kind of stress is this referring to? There is the mundane stress of daily affairs, the common things that rise up in relationships, expectations others have of one, stress at home with family and siblings, from the need to establish security professionally, and so on. Is this what The Noble Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of dukkha dukkha nirodha gamini patipada ariya sacca is about? Of course, these are not excluded from the problematic, but this is certainly not where the concept as it is dealt with here hits its mark. For this, we have to examine what meditation and liberation are really about at the level of basic questions, putting aside the mundanity of relaxing and feeling better about oneself. One can take a valium for this latter.

What if I said meditation is an event that is understood only in an analysis of the structures of consciousness? Here I think of Husserl and his phenomenological reduction has been implicit in phenomenology since Kant, and here particularly, in Kierkegaard. What is the self? he asks in his Concept of Anxiety and Sickness Unto Death. Kierkegaard, responding to Hegel, sees that reason cannot be the ground for the actuality that is qualitatively set apart from it. Existence is not essentially rational but is utterly transcendent (not his language). Wittgenstein was a fan years later and the idea plays out in philosophy, analytic as well, but especially in Continental philosophy. The self, for Kierkegaard, is acknowledged as a kind of nothingness that sits in the middle of the temporal dynamic of the future that is constructed out of the past in a process of becoming (to borrow from Heraclitus). He says this, and of course, Sartre's Being and Nothingness is derivative of this, as is Heidegger's Being and Time.

This ontology of time and the self, the self being constructed out of a past to future dynamic, leaves the question of the self open, for the actuality of the self cannot be possessed by the past (see the long standing tradition of apophatic theology/philosophy--Meister Eckhart, Dionysus the Areopogite, e.g.s; deconstruction steps in announcing the "end" of philosophy), as it is an actual presence that is not discovered in an analysis of the precomprehended projection that is grist for the future making mill. The present is an "eternal present" which is the foundation for existential freedom: freedom the emerges as the "authentic" self that is no longer claimed by the language and culture and beliefs and attachments that issue form the past.

Forget how the crudely made paragraph above can be questioned, criticized, the point is merely to set up an answer to your question: In the event of meditation, the above is a rough sketch of a phenomenological description of its essential features. Ever since I read Kierkegaard's discussion of the eternal present, I realized what meditation is really about at the level of basic questions (keeping in mind that we are asking questions, probing into concepts and their underpinning meanings, not stating chapter and verse. A text is only as meaningful as its concetps, and these are only meaningful if their meanings are exhaustively examined. Postmodern thinking is the crown jewel of the centuries of meandering metaphysics seeking endlessly to say the unsayable, pronouncing, by MY thinking, that we are faced with, not a conceptual problem at all and all this busy work possessed this one flawed premise that it was a propositional answer that was sought; but no: our existence is a VALUE problem, and meaning follows upon value). "Actual" eternity is not defined as a succession of moments that never ends, but as a kind of ontology of nothingness that is always already there, and is the valuative "seat" of our being. Another philosophical theme I take seriously is metaethics/ metavalue. I think in the examination of value simpliciter, the phenomenon of suffering and joy, reveals an extraordinary insight, which is that the core of value is, as Wittgenstein relates in his Lecture on ethics, well, invisible. The "good" of joy cannot be empirically observed and is a transcendental actuality. This actuality is the self, the realization of which is the goal of meditation.

Buddhism realized this in its own way centuries ago, but phenomenology gave Buddhism its meta-discussion.

The mental raise of the self: The mental “model-of-the-world” is a representational mirror of the external reality, a second mental mirror comes from the mental representation of “the others” that makes the self to happen/emerge when the mental process realizes the “invariants” between the other and I (confronting both mirrors). Two confronted mental mirrors that create the self’s singularity. — Raul

Not sure what this external reality is meant to be. Not that externality is not meaningful, but what you mean is unclear. Of course, this is a big issue. Seems to me that the mirror of external reality would hold within it that of the others, but then, what do you mean by "other"?

The Self bio-basis: The self process is confined to synchronous integrated information exchange activity between the cortex pre-frontal ventro-median area and the temporal and parietal (praecuneus) lobes. — Raul

I am willing to think like this, in this naturalistic framework, but only AS naturalistic. But where do your, if you will, "reductions" lie? Are you committing yourself to a physical reductionist thesis? Then you will have to face the music: your utterances pronouncing an objective physical world would have to be physical, yet if that were true, how does epistemic affirmation occur? That is, how does a physical object like a brain, ever "know" an external object to affirm the out "thereness" of external reality?

Self and experience: The self is not required for experience to happen or to be communicated. A conscious and an unconscious brain can be able to communicate its emotions without being self-conscious, i.e. reflex actions. — Raul

I don't understanding this. Unconscious experience? This needs explaining.

Self and time: The Self process "emerges" gradually as our brain matures and as we grow as individuals in a proper stimulating cultural context.
The Self is not something permanent, it dissolves gradually when we address our attention to specific tasks and/or non-referential thoughts. It dissolves and disappear as well when we sleep or die, — Raul

I see, you wake up, there you are, fall asleep and you are not there; you die, you're gone. It rises and falls, like the tides and other physical things. Proving that there is an enduring self is not possible empirically. But then, empirical observation precisely called into serious question with a physicalist model. If the pragmatists are right about knowledge, and what is known is pragmatically known, then ALL claims to knowing are relegated to the bin of unknowables. Then there is the metaethical argument which I won't go into here unless you are so inclined.

The self and evolution: The self makes us more adaptive and effective in our survival and homeostatic goals as a species.
As consciousness, the Self enables even more complex (larger, longer, more realistic and more integrated) models-of-the-world as it enables, i.e., evaluating our judgments against the other’s. — Raul

The self and evolution: The self makes us more adaptive and effective in our survival and homeostatic goals as a species.
As consciousness, the Self enables even more complex (larger, longer, more realistic and more integrated) models-of-the-world as it enables, i.e., evaluating our judgments against the other’s. — Raul

trouble with evolution, which I of course think is a right view as far as it goes, is that evolution has nothing to say about the evolved self qualitatively. More realistic? No, better at solving problems regarding survival and reproduction, but wht actually brings about evolutionary change is entirely outside this: Genetic accidents have no intrinsic relation to evolutionary needs. They just occur and happen to work better than otherwise, but this, "better" refers to a quality that is entirely arbitrary to evolution, that is, accidents are not inherently evolutionary accidents. And the consciousness that has arisen over the millennia is not an evolutionary consciousness. E.g., granted, the reproduction is encouraged by the gratification of sex, but such gratification is not therefore so defined as the success of gratification. What it is, and all the evolved self is, isentirely OTHER than these processes and have to be understood only in their manifest qualities.

Self and memory: Access to memories is necessary for the self to happen. More accurate and longer memories that contain external descriptions of the world (i.e. science) the more empowered the self is. — Raul

True, and it goes further: the self is constructed out of memory, as memory precomprehends the given moment. Ask, what is my "self" and you are already relying on memory even in the asking, for recollection of language and the learning, of structured logical thought is all part of the anticipated moment of asking, of walking down the street, and so on. One's identity is a complex memory.

But in this predelineated self, one finds much more than memory, doesn't one? Examine the self and its immediate interface with the world, which, not being so immediate after all, given that all encounters are precomprehended and that it is IN the recollection that the understanding can grasp the world in thought, BUT there is this strange insistence on "presence" which defies temporal delimitations: not only is my experience constructed out of memory, but there is the actuality that I face that is NOT memory at all. Put a spear into my kidney and I am not registering the event as a dynamic recollection, and the same goes for all experiences: the actuality of the event entirely escapes the understanding. Since the self is, as with all matters, predelineated by memory and the understanding and its recognition and familiarity with things rests with this, there remains that elusive "middle" world of actuality where the self has its center.

Self and the existential delusion: The Self is necessary for the emergence of the concepts of "infinite" and "finite" that foster the generation of fear, anxiety and depression as the "model-of-the-world" it generates is much larger than himself. This idea of confinement gets in conflict with its primordial instinct of survival. Systems of believes that sustain a teleological illusion mitigate these negative feelings (religions, intelligent design, spiritualism, mysticism,...). — Raul

And yet, when we speak of survival have we brought theory to its final resting place at the foundation where inquiry goes no further? Ot don't we need to made foundations where they present themselves: at the level of presuppositions at work in the affairs is science? Science does not even pretend to be about the self; rather, it yields to the interpretative standards that have no regard for the actualities in the human self's world. Physicality? A meaningless term, ontologically. Propositional empiricism? What is the structure of the proposition vis a vis the world of objects? What of ethics and aesthetics, the most salient feature of being a self? That is, the meanings we are IN, in the world is what comes first in discussing the self. And also, the reductionist paradox looms large: You think all things reducible to the physical, yet, the concept itself is without predicative possibilities, i.e., there is nothing to say about it; furhter, you, the thinking agency conceiving of the physical would be yourself a duly reducible agency, and therefore you would need to show how that which is reducible can even conceive of what is not.

I asked you about this:

I think if the Buddha were here with us now, he would agree: all of our endeavors are at the most basic level, a yearning for this extraordinary one thing. — Constance

Based on what do you think that??


I think you're looking at the Buddha in a very romantic, idealistic way. A modern re-imagining: egalitarian, politically correct, democratic. Non-sexist.
The Buddha of the Pali Canon is not like that. He's an aristocrat, authoritarian, dogmatic. Even when he goes for alms or sleeps in the forest covered with leaves.
The Buddha of the Pali Canon doesn't care how you're doing or what your "hopes and dreams" are. You think he would agree that all of our endeavors are at the most basic level, a yearning for this extraordinary one thing? No, he's not a New Ager.


There are many metadiscussions of Buddhism. Starting with the ones in traditionally Buddhist Asian cultures. Then the metadiscussions in the many Western imports/exports of Buddhism that try so hard to make Buddhism seem palatable to modern Western sensitivities, that try so hard to present it as the one religion that isn't really a religion, but a philosophy.

But as one reimagines the Buddha and Buddhism this way, selectively regarding old sources, keeping things one likes, discarding those one doesn't, making changes here and there, as one prefers: What is the result of that? Is that something that can be relied on as a path to liberation?

The old tradition (that can be traced back to the historical Buddha and his disciples) came with a declaration of a guarantee: Do things the way you're told, the way preserved by the tradition, and this is your best bet to become liberated.
One might accept that guarantee, or not; but at least it's there and has some historical validity.

But the new reimaginings can offer no such guarantee. This is free-style, anything-goes, reinventing-the-W/wheel kind of "Buddhism". An ivory tower populated mostly by youngish able-bodied males who told society to go suck on a lemon and escaped into their own minds. Are they enlightened? Are they liberated? Maybe they even are, but they sure can't teach others how to become liberated as well.

I am only interested in how we interpret something like this, and have limited regard for what the Buddha actually said. — Constance

Do you believe that what you quoted there is Buddhist doctrine?? — baker

That passage quoted underneath is not Buddhist teaching. It's an example of the 'nihilist view' associated with the materialists of the Buddha's day. It's similar or identical to what materialists believe now.

My thoughts are that once the constructed self is eliminated, what remains is not nothing, but a depth of existence and well being that goes entirely beyond the pragmatic existence of everyday living — Constance

:ok:

[The Buddha:] "By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.

There is a striking resemblance here to post modern thinking that denies a center to any proposition. Husserl's epoche, — Constance

Have a read of Epoche and Śūnyatā. (It's behind a paywall but registration for online use is free.)

Later texts are taught by someone other than the Buddha, by people who may not even be enlightened. — baker

That's not what the Mahāyāna says of itself, although it is what the Theravada says about it.

The Mahāyāna sūtras were not recognized as being Buddha word (buddhavacana) by various groups of Indian Buddhists and there was lively debate over their authenticity throughout the Buddhist world. Buddhist communities such as the Mahāsāṃghika school and the Theravada tradition of Sri Lanka became divided into groups which accepted or did not accept these texts.[8] Theravāda commentaries of the Mahavihara sub-school mention these texts (which they call Vedalla/Vetulla) as not being the Buddha word and being counterfeit scriptures.[36]

Various Mahāyāna sūtras warn against the charge that they are not word of the Buddha and defend their authenticity in different ways.[37] Some Mahāyāna sūtras like as the Gaṇḍavyūha often criticize early Buddhist figures, such as Sariputra for lacking knowledge and goodness, and thus, these elders or śrāvaka are seen as not intelligent enough to receive the Mahāyāna teachings.[38]

The reason these accounts give for the historically late disclosure of the Mahāyāna teachings is that most people were initially unable to understand the Mahāyāna sūtras at the time of the Buddha (500 BCE) and suitable recipients for these teachings had not yet arisen.[39] Some traditional accounts of the transmission of the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras claim that they were originally stored or hidden in the realm of the nāgas (serpent-like supernatural beings). Later, these sūtras were retrieved by Nāgārjuna.[40] Other Mahāyāna sources state that they were preached or preserved by bodhisattvas like Mañjuśrī or Buddhas like Vajradhāra.[41][42] — Wikipedia

The Buddha of the Pali Canon is not like that. He's an aristocrat, authoritarian, dogmatic. — baker

I think that's completely incorrect. Having renounced his family and household, he also renounced any aristocratic rank, and besides there are questions as to whether his lineage really was aristocratic. The Sangha was open to members of all castes, which is one of the reasons Buddhism died out in India. And he was not authoritarian, as anyone was free to join the Sangha - sure, they would be expelled for breaking the monastic code, but that is not 'authoritarianism'.

great analysis :clap:

Buddhism realized this in its own way centuries ago, but phenomenology gave Buddhism its meta-discussion. — Constance

Check this article out

I think you're looking at the Buddha in a very romantic, idealistic way. A modern re-imagining: egalitarian, politically correct, democratic. Non-sexist.
The Buddha of the Pali Canon is not like that. He's an aristocrat, authoritarian, dogmatic. Even when he goes for alms or sleeps in the forest covered with leaves.
The Buddha of the Pali Canon doesn't care how you're doing or what your "hopes and dreams" are. You think he would agree that all of our endeavors are at the most basic level, a yearning for this extraordinary one thing? No, he's not a New Ager.


There are many metadiscussions of Buddhism. Starting with the ones in traditionally Buddhist Asian cultures. Then the metadiscussions in the many Western imports/exports of Buddhism that try so hard to make Buddhism seem palatable to modern Western sensitivities, that try so hard to present it as the one religion that isn't really a religion, but a philosophy.

But as one reimagines the Buddha and Buddhism this way, selectively regarding old sources, keeping things one likes, discarding those one doesn't, making changes here and there, as one prefers: What is the result of that? Is that something that can be relied on as a path to liberation?

The old tradition (that can be traced back to the historical Buddha and his disciples) came with a declaration of a guarantee: Do things the way you're told, the way preserved by the tradition, and this is your best bet to become liberated.
One might accept that guarantee, or not; but at least it's there and has some historical validity.

But the new reimaginings can offer no such guarantee. This is free-style, anything-goes, reinventing-the-W/wheel kind of "Buddhism". An ivory tower populated mostly by youngish able-bodied males who told society to go suck on a lemon and escaped into their own minds. Are they enlightened? Are they liberated? Maybe they even are, but they sure can't teach others how to become liberated as well. — baker

Well, I don't think sucking on lemons is helpful. But the philosophy is just the a matter of making ideas clear, even if the matter itself is revelatory, intuitive and defiant of interpretation. This is why I think apophatic philosophy, in the East, neti, neti, is helpful. I mean, once you are in an earnest engagement to find out what is so mysteriously called enlightenment, it is in your inquiring mind where everydayness needs to be pushed aside. It is not a matter of saying what is essentially revelatory and intuitive, but rather talking around it, about it, indirectly through the familiar to point to what cannot be spoken.

After all, the actuality of the world, the "presence" of being here, cannot be spoken, and if a person can realize this at the perceptual level, that is, in the plain apprehension of objects in the world, in the midst of implicit knowledge events there is the palpable mystery in all things, and one experiences an extraordinary intimation of depth and profundity, then one knows without a doubt s/he is in the proximity of enlightenment, though its consummation may be light years away. It is what inspires one to move forward, do the hard work endlessly looking. I don't think the Pali canon is the exclusive vehicle for this at all.

That's not what the Mahāyāna says of itself, although it is what the Theravada says about it. — Wayfarer

Sure. And let's not forget that Mahayana is the "Buddhist" tradition that came up with a "spiritual" justification for killing, raping, and pillaging. I'm talking about the Secondary Bodhisattva Vows, of course.

The Buddha of the Pali Canon is not like that. He's an aristocrat, authoritarian, dogmatic.
— baker

I think that's completely incorrect. Having renounced his family and household, he also renounced any aristocratic rank, and besides there are questions as to whether his lineage really was aristocratic. The Sangha was open to members of all castes, which is one of the reasons Buddhism died out in India. And he was not authoritarian, as anyone was free to join the Sangha - sure, they would be expelled for breaking the monastic code, but that is not 'authoritarianism'.

Really? The Buddha of the Pali Canon who in the beginning, after he attained enlightenment, didn't want to teach at all, because he concluded from his first post-enlightenment experiences with humans that humans are just too stupid and too worthless to be taught?
The Buddha of the Pali Canon who was very liberal with the use of the word "fool" for people?
The Buddha of the Pali Canon who decided who was good enough to be taught by him and who wasn't?
The Buddha of the Pali Canon who is continually referred to with epithets like "the Blessed One", "the Rightfully Self-enlightened One"?

These strike you as not aristocratic, not authoritarian, not dogmatic?

Unrelated to that, my encounters with Buddhists from different schools support this.


Based on my reading of the Pali Canon, the Buddha is definitely not someone for whom I would say something like "I think if the Buddha were here with us now, he would agree: all of our endeavors are at the most basic level, a yearning for this extraordinary one thing."

After all, the actuality of the world, the "presence" of being here, cannot be spoken, and if a person can realize this at the perceptual level, that is, in the plain apprehension of objects in the world, in the midst of implicit knowledge events there is the palpable mystery in all things, and one experiences an extraordinary intimation of depth and profundity, then one knows without a doubt s/he is in the proximity of enlightenment, though its consummation may be light years away. It is what inspires one to move forward, do the hard work endlessly looking. — Constance

Sure. But I don't see how you can do any of this in some relation to Buddhism. Neither the Buddha nor Buddhists would tolerate you doing that in their presence. What you describe is something they criticize severely.

I think you're assuming far more familiarity with and acceptance from the Buddha and the Buddhists than is warranted.

I don't think the Pali canon is the exclusive vehicle for this at all.

It's not a vehicle for what you're describing at all.

let's not forget that Mahayana is the "Buddhist" tradition that came up with a "spiritual" justification for killing, raping, and pillaging. — baker

Well, that was a short conversation.

Buddhism realized this in its own way centuries ago, but phenomenology gave Buddhism its meta-discussion.
— Constance

Check this article out — Wayfarer

And this one:
Nascent speculative non-buddhism
(You don't have to fill in anything, just click download)

Well, that was a short conversation. — Wayfarer

Why sugarcoat the Secondary Bodhisattva Vows?

A part of the Vows is about vowing to do things that are otherwise considered wrong or harmful, but still one should do them for the sake of the "spiritual wellbeing" of those who end up on the receiving end of those actions.

Would you like to be on the receiving end of those actions? A Mahayani coming along and beating you up and feeling justified to do so because he's sure that this will be to your benefit??

That's a bizarre claim to make in relation to a religious text.
Religion is dogma to which one is supposed to align oneself. It's not something to discover, or verify.
— baker

Sorry, this is most emphatically wrong. — Constance

Fortunately or unfortunately, no. The system of religious beliefs and practices is a closed, self-referential system that works by the principle of self-confirmation: one starts off by taking for granted that what the religion teaches is true and that "it works", and then one does the practices, and then one comes out "convinced" that is is true and that "it works".

It's like the science "experiments" that children do in science classes in school: the children don't actually discover anything, don't learn anything "on their own". What they do is they internalize the scientific terms and processes and then they learn to see the world through the lens of those terms and processes.

Not sure what this external reality is meant to be. — Constance

This external reality is the world that interacts with our senses: the light that hits our eyes, the sounds that hit our ears, the feelings on our skin, etc... One of the capabilities of our brains is to reproduce/mirror that external reality so that he can then make models and simulations of the "future". Example: it creates a model of the room you're in and this is useful for you to move around, it creates a model of your friend's personality what helps your talk to him and understand each other...

how does epistemic affirmation occur? That is, how does a physical object like a brain, ever "know" an external object to affirm the out "thereness" of external reality? — Constance

Those are categories and concepts we develop as we grow, as our brain grows. We learn how to categorize physical objects as well as conceptual objects that are communicated by the social context we grow in. The relationships of those objects and our brain assigns value to them, cognitive value, emotional value to achieve its main goal: keep the homeostatic equilibrium.
The episteme, the knowing, happens when the internal objects and categories, ideas have a external correlate. There is a "symbiosis","correlation" between the cognitive objects and the external world. When the cognitive predictions (manipulations of the internal objects that represent the external world) correlate with reality. Example: if I tell my wife I love her she will react in certain way, if I eat an apple I'll like the taste, etc... Pure biological activity.

Unconscious experience? — Constance

Yes, there re experiments that show a person saying he doesn't see anything (consciously not seeing) but he behaves and moves avoiding obstacles. Search for "blindsight" in wikipedia.

If the pragmatists are right about knowledge, and what is known is pragmatically known, then ALL claims to knowing are relegated to the bin of unknowables. — Constance

Not all of them but many of them. Could you put some examples?

all the evolved self is, isentirely OTHER than these processes and have to be understood only in their manifest qualities. — Constance

Our Self shares many qualities with the self of primates for example. We have more capabilities mainly related to language that enable deeper reasoning and manipulation/simulation of realty for our evolutionary advantage. Evolution is about patterns that survive longer and adapt better. Our brain have created this capability of the "Self" that enables evolutionary advantages. At least for now. Why do you see it is entirely OTHER? There are no "new qualities" in our brain, just more powerful. I don't think our Self has a singularity.

there remains that elusive "middle" world of actuality where the self has its center. — Constance

Agree, and a good example si this "Seven Seconds memory" man you can find in youtube.

Science does not even pretend to be about the self; rather, it yields to the interpretative standards that have no regard for the actualities in the human self's world. — Constance

This is incorrect. Heterophenomenology deals with actualities in the human consciousness and the self (I'm thinking on Dennett and Dehaene works, you should not ignore them).The success of science studying the self is that it brings "the new" and "actual new" not based on speculation but on scientific dialogue with our brain and our subjective manifestations. Thanks to this we can today not only better understand our limits and how the brain creates the "illusions of the self" (distorted reality in order to make it useful for our survival, pleasure, ...). Thanks to this we have reached levels of manipulation never reached in the past (for the better and the worst).

Physicality? A meaningless term, ontologically. — Constance

The Self does have a physical correlation that is within the information flow of our cognition, as liquidity is a special property of the matter we could think about the Self in similar ways in terms of physical correlates.

You think all things reducible to the physical, yet, the concept itself is without predicative possibilities, — Constance

I think the other way around: not all the physical is reducible to things. The concept of Self does have predicative possibilities, at least the one corresponding to my manifesto.

This external reality is the world that interacts with our senses: the light that hits our eyes, the sounds that hit our ears, the feelings on our skin, etc... One of the capabilities of our brains is to reproduce/mirror that external reality so that he can then make models and simulations of the "future". Example: it creates a model of the room you're in and this is useful for you to move around, it creates a model of your friend's personality what helps your talk to him and understand each other... — Raul

Tell me what you think of what I call the opacity test: In your physical model of the world, there is a brain and this is the seat all we experience. Assume this true. Given a simple notion of transparency found in a window or a mirror, with, if "clear," an opacity of zero when it comes to delivering or transmitting the object as it is, how clear would be what is delivered by a brain, a thick, bulk of organic material? In fact, how is it that any at all of what is the original, independent object brought forth?

Rorty convinced me that such an idea is senseless. What we call reality is a matrix of pragmatic interface; in plain physicalist term, all you ever encounter is the collective neuronal epiphenomenal presentation. But here is the real rub: The idea of anything that stands outside of this physical "thing" we call a brain can only be conceived within this mass, thereby making talk of exteriors like this nothing less than metaphysics.

I think one has to take a good long look at this idea and ask, how is it that anything out there gets in here? Out thereness itself MUST be in here, point to my head. I know you want to affirm an scientist's world of the assumed understanding of an exteriority in the standard sense, but what good is this if it depends entirely on an assumption that cannot be explained at all, that in fact, on analysis, reveals exactly the opposite, for one can never conceive how a brain can "know" what is not a brain and phenomenology is the only recourse.

Those are categories and concepts we develop as we grow, as our brain grows. We learn how to categorize physical objects as well as conceptual objects that are communicated by the social context we grow in. The relationships of those objects and our brain assigns value to them, cognitive value, emotional value to achieve its main goal: keep the homeostatic equilibrium.
The episteme, the knowing, happens when the internal objects and categories, ideas have a external correlate. There is a "symbiosis","correlation" between the cognitive objects and the external world. When the cognitive predictions (manipulations of the internal objects that represent the external world) correlate with reality. Example: if I tell my wife I love her she will react in certain way, if I eat an apple I'll like the taste, etc... Pure biological activity. — Raul

Yes, if you are going to work with the common assumptions of empirical science, all this is quite salutary. But all of this begs philosophical questions. It is one thing to talk about objects and brains. cognitive and and worldly relations, but what of the analysis of knowledge itself? Going on about one's business is well and good, practical, productive, but here, we want to ask basic questions, for this is philosophy, not physics. When you say you know there is a cup on the table (or bioactivity in a petri dish), how does this get affirmed on analysis of the relation qua relation, not the relation qua all the basic assumptions that are in place while one does the shopping and pays bills. What IS such an affirmation about? we follow here the rules of procedure any scientist would, only here, the themes are altogether different in that we look to what is presupposed by familiar, unquestioned knowledge relationships.

It is not at all that there is "nothing out there" but rather what that IS cannot be said, realized, at all. This makes objects of the world very mysterious, transcendental, impossible! at the level of basic questions.

Yes, there re experiments that show a person saying he doesn't see anything (consciously not seeing) but he behaves and moves avoiding obstacles. Search for "blindsight" in wikipedia. — Raul

Yes, there re experiments that show a person saying he doesn't see anything (consciously not seeing) but he behaves and moves avoiding obstacles. Search for "blindsight" in wikipedia. — Raul

Okay, the brain delivers mixed events. Consciousness is what is reported, conceptually identified. If my hands are doing what I am not aware of, it is not a conscious event, but is autonomic.

Not all of them but many of them. Could you put some examples? — Raul

If knowledge is inherently problem solving, and to know is simply to know successful outcomes, then this places everything we consider to be true accounts of nature entirely outside the possibility of some intimations of what things "really are". I think this is likely true" Thinking and its language and its interpretative function is foundationally determinative of what the "isness" of the world is.

Of course, this is not exhaustive of our experiencing the world as world. But it IS exhaustive of our understanding's ability to establish belief and knowledge.

Our Self shares many qualities with the self of primates for example. We have more capabilities mainly related to language that enable deeper reasoning and manipulation/simulation of realty for our evolutionary advantage. Evolution is about patterns that survive longer and adapt better. Our brain have created this capability of the "Self" that enables evolutionary advantages. At least for now. Why do you see it is entirely OTHER? There are no "new qualities" in our brain, just more powerful. I don't think our Self has a singularity. — Raul

Our Self shares many qualities with the self of primates for example. We have more capabilities mainly related to language that enable deeper reasoning and manipulation/simulation of realty for our evolutionary advantage. Evolution is about patterns that survive longer and adapt better. Our brain have created this capability of the "Self" that enables evolutionary advantages. At least for now. Why do you see it is entirely OTHER? There are no "new qualities" in our brain, just more powerful. I don't think our Self has a singularity. — Raul

This is a wrong understanding of evolution. The self is not an "evolution" self, for reasons cited earlier. Not sure what you mean by "entirely Other," not that I disagree, but I miss your point. AS to the singularity of the self, this is a different matter, difficult to show because the center of an act of awareness escapes awareness. I find it very reasonable to argue that the self that is engaged on multiple fronts existing as a teacher, spouse, sibling, political activist, believer of this and that, and so on, is an aggregate self, but in the examination of the self's, errr, properties, we are looking at an interiority of affairs, not at the furniture of the world, and it is here we can "observe" the self in our stream of consciousness: this stream is our aggregate self. Look further and find this stream "runs," it constitutes time, not in time, but constitutes it, is the foundation of thought itself out of which meanings are produced, scientific meanings, as all meaning is essentially scientific. What, after all IS science if not the method of science, and what is this method if not the structure of thought itself: the simply conditional form of logic: If I impact nitro with sufficient force, THEN is will explode, hence, the meaning, in part, of nitro. This sructure is at the very heart of crossing the street, selecting a book, talking about the weather, everything at the level of basic assumptions about the world issues from here.

But in this interiority of multiple events, endlessly changing, there is always the abiding self that is on the subjective end of a given encounter. It's easy yield to the temptation to absorb this into the matrix of everything else, but then you would not be giving sufficient due to the actuality of this center. Alas, this is too difficult to talk about here. One has to read Husserl, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Levinas, back to Kant, and so on. Open for discussion, though.

Agree, and a good example si this "Seven Seconds memory" man you can find in youtube. — Raul

Agree, and a good example si this "Seven Seconds memory" man you can find in youtube. — Raul

Seven seconds: the time it takes to define a constructed self in the given complex moment of awareness, made out of the past. But the question is about this middle vis a vis the actual experience, not to be found in the theoretical paradigms; for just as science must yield to the facts, so phenomenology has to observe faithfully the structures of the self as they appear "themselves". Awareness as an aggregate is a common view among phenomenologists. I think they are wrong for several reasons. One lies with the Kantian transcendental turn, which is best expressed by Eugene Fink in his Sixth Cartesian Meditation, a more than daunting read if you haven't read Kant. Here, it is accepted that all the appears before one as it is, prior to and presupposed by empirical science, has its grounding in experience, and the focus is here, on the "primal philosophical act..to reductive giveness."
An empirical idea is constructed out of the givenness of the world, and so prior to an analysis of what the self is, we have to look into what givenness IS, which really is just a matter of looking at the interiority where the self is and finding that all roads lead to this generative source, which is the self, which is NOT contained in the categories generated that give rise to the possibility of empirical science.

Most do not even know such inquiry exists. Alas.

This is incorrect. Heterophenomenology deals with actualities in the human consciousness and the self (I'm thinking on Dennett and Dehaene works, you should not ignore them).The success of science studying the self is that it brings "the new" and "actual new" not based on speculation but on scientific dialogue with our brain and our subjective manifestations. Thanks to this we can today not only better understand our limits and how the brain creates the "illusions of the self" (distorted reality in order to make it useful for our survival, pleasure, ...). Thanks to this we have reached levels of manipulation never reached in the past (for the better and the worst). — Raul

I have little doubt about the above. don't get me wrong, I do not at all think that scientists like Dennett are wrong, but they do coincide with, say, Husserl's Ideas or Heidegger's Being and Time. It's just that these latter are at a more fundamental level. Of course, the metaethical argument for the self is completely beyond his interests as well. Indeed, the most powerful argument for the self lies not in ontology, but in metaethics. I find some analytic philosophers interesting, like Quine, who arrives at the same conclusions, essentially, as Derrida, and Rorty, who straddles the fence, though naming Heidegger and Dewey among the most important thinkers of the 20th century. Others, like John Mackie, are outside of insights at the basic level.

Sure. But I don't see how you can do any of this in some relation to Buddhism. Neither the Buddha nor Buddhists would tolerate you doing that in their presence. What you describe is something they criticize severely. — baker

Begs the question" Buddhism?? This is my point. Read about what is said at all, and you will find not a closed system of thought, but an openness of possibilities. Those who try to contain religion and philosophy to a doctrine put up barriers to understanding. What is Christianity? Kierkegaard claimed that what Jesus, "Christ," was actually talking about lay with an existential analysis of the self, not in Christendom, not in orthodoxy.

Begs the question" Buddhism?? This is my point. Read about what is said at all, and you will find not a closed system of thought, but an openness of possibilities. Those who try to contain religion and philosophy to a doctrine put up barriers to understanding. — Constance

To be clear: By doing what you suggest, one asserts one's supremacy over the text and the ideas it presents.
If this is what one is going to do, then why bother with the text at all? You might as well buy a blank notebook and write down your own ideas.

Read about what is said at all, and you will find not a closed system of thought, but an openness of possibilities.

I can see how it can be read that way, but I don't agree with it.

Those who try to contain religion and philosophy to a doctrine put up barriers to understanding.

Those who refuse to acknowledge the origins and the systemicity of (a) religion are forcefully superimposing themselves and their own ideas onto (the) religion, thus making (the) religion their subordinate.

What is Christianity? Kierkegaard claimed that what Jesus, "Christ," was actually talking about lay with an existential analysis of the self, not in Christendom, not in orthodoxy.

He was a Protestant living off a trust fund, flriting with Catholic ideas from a safe distance. Of course he could afford to fiddle and flirt this way, never actually committing to the religious community which produced him and to which he was indebted. Ungrateful brat.

In other words, I judge, I condemn the areligious, "spiritual" approach to religion. Religious texts were not written for just anyone to read them any way they like and to do with them whatever they like.
It's a matter of common decency to acknowledge that and the religious tradition of which they are part.

To be clear: By doing what you suggest, one asserts one's supremacy over the text and the ideas it presents.
If this is what one is going to do, then why bother with the text at all? You might as well buy a blank notebook and write down your own ideas. — baker

I see ancient, original texts as openings for new disclosure, and therein lies their greatness. There are no definitive texts, only movement toward greater intimacy with truth at the level of basic questions. What is so important about Hinduism and Buddhism is that they presented an extraordinary efficient method for disclosing revelatory, intuitive understanding at this level. They presented a new intuitive horizon! And I believe it to be philosophy's sole remaining mission to talk about this, learn what it is.

Those who refuse to acknowledge the origins and the systemicity of (a) religion are forcefully superimposing themselves and their own ideas onto (the) religion, thus making (the) religion their subordinate. — baker

If i were putting forward something to replace Buddhism, this would be right. I just want to understand what it has to say. At the center is not a doctrine for me. It is an existential engagement.

He was a Protestant living off a trust fund, flriting with Catholic ideas from a safe distance. Of course he could afford to fiddle and flirt this way, never actually committing to the religious community which produced him and to which he was indebted. Ungrateful brat.

In other words, I judge, I condemn the areligious, "spiritual" approach to religion. Religious texts were not written for just anyone to read them any way they like and to do with them whatever they like.
It's a matter of common decency to akcnowledge that and the religious tradition of which they are part — baker

That about Kierkegaard and his inherited wealth seems like just an intentional ad hominem.

But remember what K stood for: a deeply understood religion that can take absurd notions like original sin and reveal that they are not absurd at all. What tradition to you have in mind, the one that sanctions the subordination of religion to social trivialities? The "churchy" way of affirming God in the margins of regular living? He was not aspiritual at all, quite the opposite. I can't begin to imagine why you would think like this. He thought the medievals had it right with religion square in the middle living and breathing. Read his Purity of the Heart; no more aspiritual than than de Chardin or Meister Eckhart. The opposite is true.

But then, this here is certainly NOT about the errors of the Pali canon at all! I mean, it is an interpretative expansion, but exploring meaning not unlike what it is to explore Jesus' words, only here, we have the "event" that is center stage, much more available for objective study. To me, meditation is a practical metaphysics!