What comes to my mind is that all metaphysics is reductionism. We reduce the complexity of experience to useful generalities.

One piece of the puzzle is the doctrine of inter-dependence. As an example it claims that when wood, metal and artisan come together we get a chair. The chair is just a convergence of other more ''primary'' stuff and so can't have an independent existence. — TheMadFool

I've heard/read a similar idea. What a chair is involves all of human history and the universe ultimately. I can't exhaustively describe a chair (if even then) without describing/explaining everything. How have chairs evolved? What are the words for chair and how are the connected to chairs? What are chair made of and why do these materials work? And so on.

Similarly, the self/I also arises from inter-dependence - flesh, bones, blood, for instance, give rise to consciousness and the self/I. Therefore, there is no real I. Not-self is what I hear people saying. — TheMadFool

I see that we can break people down as a system of sub-things. There is also the social existence of individuals and the way we are differentiated from one another and understand ourselves and others in terms of these differences. I am male because there are females. I have personality trait X only because such a trait is conspicuous against the possibility of its absence. We might say that an individual self is a kind of foreground which is dependent on its background. The background is lots of other selves.

I was hoping for someone to attack the notion of Sunyata = reductionism because reductionism is materialistic in nature. Yet, here we have a religion (Buddhism) that seems to be, paradoxically, reductionist.

As I said, Sunyata has a good argument behind it and materialism backs it up.

I see. I suppose I draw the distinction elsewhere. There are people who think in terms of materialism and idealism (who take grand abstractions and words for existence especially seriously) and those who experience all those abstractions lumped together as the same kind of thing. I find myself to have moved from the first to the second position. There are 'isms' I could paste to this move, but that pasting would muddy my point.

I have something to say about reductionism but it's very weak compared to what I want.

I do think that we can pick something, anything for that matter, and take it apart into simpler components. However, I also think that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Yes, we can take metal, plastic, rubber and glass to make a car but a car isn't simply an additive result of its parts. A car acquires an identity of its own, for instance it can become part of a family's journey through life or be the cause of a death etc. So, a car exists, let's say, in a different plane of existence. Of course this is not as much as I'm hoping for.

The truth is I'm struggling with the notion of a soul, specifically its survival of death. As with a car, as opposed to Buddhist not-self, I'm of the opinion that a soul is like a car, its components necessary, but it's more than just a physical sum of its parts. A soul is a different level of existence.

As you may notice, I still can't show you why a soul should escape death.

I was hoping for someone to attack the notion of Sunyata = reductionism because reductionism is materialistic in nature. Yet, here we have a religion (Buddhism) that seems to be, paradoxically, reductionist.

As I said, Sunyata has a good argument behind it and materialism backs it up. — TheMadFool

There is no one understanding of Sunyata as each Buddhist sect approaches the idea differently, and it is not central to Buddhist thought. Only the Four Noble Truths and Eight Fold Path can be considered Central.

With that said, despite the thousands of different interpretations of Sunyata, I have never heard of any interpretation anywhere that would be materialistic in nature. It is more diametrically opposite.

As I said, Sunyata has a good argument behind it and materialism backs it up. — TheMadFool

It all depends on whether one is convinced by mereological nihilism, and the project of reductionism in the sciences. I tend to think that objects can consist of parts, systems can consist of individual behaviors, and the self can exist as certain brain activity with a cultural context.

I don't think I have to say that only subatomic particles or fields exist. One can argue for that, but I'm not sold on it. I also tend to think that social structures like companies and governments exist. It's about the emergent complexity of various systems that result in objects, selves, social arrangements.

If you just look at an individual ant, it's behavior is pretty dumb and mindless. But an ant colony engages in impressive endeavors, which consist entirely of dumb ant behaviors interacting with one another. Do we understand ants as only the individuals? Is an ant colony not a thing in the world? If so, we're going to run into huge difficulties explaining how ants survive.

Isn't this reductionism? I'm inclined to think it is and also that it's a good argument.

The most common form of reductionism asserts the existence of fundamental particles, each of which exists independently, and says everything is made of them.

Sunyata is like the opposite of that, saying that nothing, not even subatomic particles, exists independently, because everything depends on everything else. Sunyata would thus say that we cannot understand a chair just by looking at the atoms it's made of, or at the wood, metal and artisan. It would say that to fully understand the chair we have to understand the entire universe.

Sunyata = reductionism because reductionism is materialistic in nature. — TheMadFool

Your reasoning isn’t clear to me here but this reminds me of a frequently referenced portion of the Heart Sutra which claims that form = emptiness. It doesn’t stop there however, it goes on to claim that emptiness = form. You might say the latter is redundant, unless you appreciate what it attempts to signify, which is essentially non-duality. That’s why the concept of emptiness is difficult to grasp.

Can non-duality be reductionist?

Isn't this reductionism? I'm inclined to think it is and also that it's a good argument.

What do you think? — TheMadFool

Hey, @Wayfarer, get your ass over here and splain this.

He may be too mortified by the claim to participate.

He may be too mortified by the claim to participate. — praxis

In my experience, Wayfarer is always happy to respond to sincere questions when he can.

The fundamental problem with the OP is that it is using physicalist concepts/language to explain a non-physicalist philosophy.

Everything is a unity. There are no parts. In does not reflect the philosophy to say something arises from something else or is the product of some parts. It is all intertwined and entangled. A holographic universe would be a closer analogy.

I see no other option but for a reductionist philosophy to be materialistic. How does one be reductionist in a non-materialistic worldview? You'd simply be building castles in the air.

Can non-duality be reductionist? — praxis

Non-duality as opposed to....??? Duality can't be escaped. Even nirvana itself is the opposite of being unenlightened.

What I think is duality is an intrinsic feature of our reality. To be aware of this ''fact'' is essential to be in touch with reality. Like yin and yang, opposites, together, form the whole. If I were to oppose duality as a truth in our world I would only go so far as to say that between black and white there are many shades of grey. What do you think?

The truth is I'm struggling with the notion of a soul, specifically its survival of death. As with a car, as opposed to Buddhist not-self, I'm of the opinion that a soul is like a car, its components necessary, but it's more than just a physical sum of its parts. A soul is a different level of existence.

As you may notice, I still can't show you why a soul should escape death. — TheMadFool

I suppose I think of people as wholes greater than the sum of their parts. I'd like to believe in a good afterlife, but I just can't. I can make peace with this to some degree by reflecting that the young replace the old. They have similar passions, similar ideas. We pass on our discoveries through various media. I can blast guitar solos from the 60s and feel as if they came from my own soul, as if the musician tapped in to something that doesn't die with the individual.

I've also been writing about my youth lately. I don't think the incidents themselves are important. My hope is that my reader will be reminded of similar incidents in their own youth --or really of the feelings involved in those incidents. Spiderwebs in nature come to mind. They are always a bit irregular, but a kind of perfect or ideal spiderweb is implied. That ideal spiderweb is what I can imagine in terms of escaping death and having an immortal soul. If humans become extinct, this web goes too. Because this is far enough in the future, it 'irrationally' doesn't bother me much. I suppose plugging into the ideal spider web or guitar solo and so on offers a pleasure that makes us forget death and the futility it threatens. I also just a got a cute dog, and petting that little bitch is a delight. It plugs me in to some ancient and individual-trascending mammalian nurturing energy.

Duality can't be escaped. Even nirvana itself is the opposite of being unenlightened. — TheMadFool

Duality is an idea. A way of looking at things. It's human. It's mental. It's not a physical fact. It can't be proven or even observed. Show me a picture of some duality. An x-ray. A meter reading.

An idea can be escaped just by stopping thinking of things that way. Which makes it sound easier than it usually is.

I see no other option but for a reductionist philosophy to be materialistic. How does one be reductionist in a non-materialistic worldview? You'd simply be building castles in the air. — TheMadFool

It is necessary to pivot one's way of thinking to begin to understand different way of viewing life and nature. You are trying to translate using what you are reading. You have to DO in order to begin to effect change. If you try to translate a philosophy based upon unity into one that rests on materiality, you get materiality. That is why you always ended up where you started.

It is generally thought that anything which can be said to exist must have some kind of form, even if it is only a form of activity (as with the different kinds of fundamental particles that populate contemporary physical theory). This requirement would apply as equally to the "more primary stuff" as it does to chairs and cars, trees and dogs, houses and horses.

So if Sunyata is reductionism the question as to what everything with a form, according to this doctrine of emptiness or formlessness, has been reduced to remains.

Relating this to materialism the question then becomes 'Can matter, contrary to what is generally thought, exist without form. This relates to some of my recent reading regarding John Duns Scotus (the Subtle Doctor). The following is an excerpt From the SEP entry entitled 'John Duns Scotus':

First, Scotus argues that there is matter that is entirely devoid of form, or what is known as “prime matter” (Quaestiones in Metaphysicam 7, q. 5; Lectura 2, d. 12, q. un.). Scholars debate now (just as they debated in Scotus's day) whether Aristotle himself really believed that there is prime matter or merely introduced it as a theoretical substratum for substantial change, believing instead that in actual fact matter always has at least some minimal form (the form of the elements being the most minimal of all). Aquinas denied both that Aristotle intended to posit it and that it could exist on its own. For something totally devoid of form would be utterly featureless; it would be pure potentiality, but not actually anything. Scotus, by contrast, argues that prime matter not only can but does exist as such: “it is one and the same stuff that underlies every substantial change” (King [2002]).

I also just a got a cute dog, and petting that little bitch is a delight. It plugs me in to some ancient and individual-trascending mammalian nurturing energy. — dog

The Eternal life of the Dog with his Bitch?

Hey, Wayfarer, get your ass over here and splain this. — T Clark

śūnyatā is one of those quintessentially Buddhist terms that doesn't have a direct equivalent in English. It is often translated as 'emptiness' but that in turn is misunderstood to be saying that 'nothing really exists', which is nihilism - and which is not what śūnyatā means.

I think the best way to understand it is to start from what is called 'the principle of dependent origination'. The short version of that is that 'everything arises due to causes and conditions' - similar to what the OP says. But then the OP draws on a kind of Aristotelian depiction in terms of formal and final causation. The Buddhist analysis is very different to the Aristotelian, and is given in terms of the 'twelve nidanas (links) of interdependent causation' (see here.)

Bear in mind, Buddhist principles such as these are aimed at getting insight into the way emotions, feelings, reactions, likes and dislikes, and so on, propagate themselves more or less unconsciously or automatically through a series of conditioned and semi-autonomic processes. So through this analysis, the student is being trained to focus on those processes through meditative awareness which is what gives rise to 'cessation' (nirodha) of these otherwise automatic or conditioned responses.

Contemplation of 'dependent origination' leads to the understanding of 'emptiness' is because it undermines the solidity that persons habitually attribute to the objects of experience:

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them.

This mode is called emptiness because it's empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of it: the stories and world-views we fashion to explain who we are and the world we live in. Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise — of our true identity and the reality of the world outside — pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.

Say for instance, that you're meditating, and a feeling of anger toward your mother appears. Immediately, the mind's reaction is to identify the anger as "my" anger, or to say that "I'm" angry. It then elaborates on the feeling, either working it into the story of your relationship to your mother, or to your general views about when and where anger toward one's mother can be justified. The problem with all this, from the Buddha's perspective, is that these stories and views entail a lot of suffering. The more you get involved in them, the more you get distracted from seeing the actual cause of the suffering: the labels of "I" and "mine" that set the whole process in motion. As a result, you can't find the way to unravel that cause and bring the suffering to an end.

If, however, you can adopt the emptiness mode — by not acting on or reacting to the anger, but simply watching it as a series of events, in and of themselves — you can see that the anger is empty of anything worth identifying with or possessing.

Emptiness, Thanissaro Bikkhu.

Thanissaro is a Theravadin monk, and whilst it's true that śūnyatā is more associated with Mahayana Buddhism (such as found in Tibetan and East Asian schools), the principle is still understood and taught in Theravada cultures (such as in Thai Buddhism.)

Similarly, the self/I also arises from inter-dependence - flesh, bones, blood, for instance, give rise to consciousness and the self/I. Therefore, there is no real I. Not-self is what I hear people saying. — TheMadFool

I think caution is warranted on this point. There is actually a very short and succinct sutta (saying) on this point, as follows:

Then the wanderer Vacchagotta went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there he asked the Blessed One: "Now then, Venerable Gotama, is there a self?"

When this was said, the Blessed One was silent.

"Then is there no self?"

A second time, the Blessed One was silent.

Then Vacchagotta the wanderer got up from his seat and left.

Then, not long after Vacchagotta the wanderer had left, Ven. Ananda said to the Blessed One, "Why, lord, did the Blessed One not answer when asked a question by Vacchagotta the wanderer?"

"Ananda, if I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of eternalism [the view that there is an eternal, unchanging soul]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self — were to answer that there is no self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of annihilationism [the view that death is the annihilation of consciousness]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, would that be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self?"

"No, lord."

"And if I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self — were to answer that there is no self, the bewildered Vacchagotta would become even more bewildered: 'Does the self I used to have now not exist?'" 2

In this dialogue, the Blessed One, is the Buddha; Vacchagotta is a wandering ascetic; and Ananda is the Buddha's attendant. Notice that the key point is that the Buddha declines to answer whether there is 'a self' or not: to answer 'there is', is to fall into the error of the eternally-existing soul (eternalism); to answer 'there is not' is to fall into the error of nihilism (basically, denies karmic consequences). The answer is the 'noble silence' of the Buddha. And that is what gives rise to the dialectical nature of the understanding of śūnyatā.

Whereas, I think a great number of people, and even many Buddhists, simply interpret Buddhism to outright deny that there is a self - however, that's not quite right, and furthermore, as this passage illustrates, such an answer does tend towards nihilism (and indeed from the Buddhist p.o.v. nihilism is certainly one of the common maladies of the modern outlook.)

I think one point of comparison in the Platonic dialogues, is that of aporia - questions for which no satisfactory answer can be arrived at. So the teaching of śūnyatā can be said to be 'aporetic'. It doesn't declare that something is or is not the case: instead it invites reflection on the very nature of experience itself.

I really love this response. I have a file where I copy posts that I want to keep so I can reread them later. I copied it there.

You are talking about things that I've experienced out of the corner of my eye, in my metaphorical peripheral vision. I've thought about it a lot but haven't been able to put into words. I feel it most when I find myself "acting without acting." Cutting out the middle man. The self is real, but it's like a jacket. I can (theoretically at least) take it off when I don't need it.

Thanks.

(Y) Glad to be of assistance.

Glad to be of assistance. — Wayfarer

Thank you for not telling me my interpretation is completely wrong.

everything depends on everything else — andrewk

Interesting. So inter-dependence isn't vertical (simple to complex) but rather horizontal (everything in relation to something else)? I find this hard to conceive. Before I was born, the universe existed as evidenced through the experience and memory of others. After I die, I'm absolutely sure that the universe will continue to exist. How then does the universe depend on me? I think only vertical inter-dependence makes sense.

Thanks for the post. So, the truth lies somewhere between nihilism and eternalism. What I gather from your post is the Buddha, in his explanation to Ananda, makes a distinction between a soul and consciousness. The Buddha denies a soul but affirms consciousness. What then is the difference between a soul and consciousness? I have pasted the relevant quote below:

"Ananda, if I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of eternalism [the view that there is an eternal, unchanging soul]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self — were to answer that there is no self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of annihilationism [the view that death is the annihilation of consciousness]

So, what is the difference between a soul and consciousness?

I suppose I think of people as wholes greater than the sum of their parts. I'd like to believe in a good afterlife, but I just can't. — dog

Why not? Sunyata, the way I understand it, denies independent indivisible existence. Everything is a composite of, scientifically speaking, matter and energy. The self is also such an entity and so lacks an eternal existence (nihilism) but, strangely, Sunyata also negates Nihilism. So, what do you think this place is - Sunyata between Nihilism and Eternalism?

Why not? — TheMadFool

I don't have the sense of a break between my mind and my body. It's more like a spectrum. What I might call my soul is the 'higher' end of a simultaneously social and bodily self. I can't make sense of it coming loose and functioning independently. Also I see with these eyes, work with these fingers. What I love most about this world is certain other people. I love them too as social-bodily complexes. The 'I' that I know is a visceral creature with an intellectual aspect.

I do know what it's like to live ecstatically in the mind for stretches at a time (to not care about food and only want the inspired thinking to continue uninterrupted.) I associate that with the idea of Heaven. Everyone is playing harps on clouds. It would be nice if that kind of high could be maintained indefinitely. We could be locked into a feeling of love, and it would be our endless pleasure to praise reality with music. Our nature would have to change. There'd be no marriage in Heaven. No life cycle. We'd have an endless sublimated musical orgasm on fluffy clouds that would never give our soulskin bedsores.

I wonder what it is, within us, that gives rise to concepts like soul, heaven, hell? Do you see any evidence for them or are they the result of a mash-up of fear, hope and immature thinking?

If Sunyata is be a dialectical synthesis of the polemic 'eternalism/nihilism' then it must be rationally explicable.

I think it is more a case of the notion of Sunyata relying on a slippery equivocation of the terms 'nothing' and 'eternal'. There may be some quietistic meat, but I would say there is no discursive meat, on its bones.

In other words I think there is no coherent middle position between eternalism and nihilism.

In other words I think there is no coherent middle position between eternalism and nihilism — Janus

That's the problem. I wonder what @Wayfarer has to say about this.

I wonder what it is, within us, that gives rise to concepts like soul, heaven, hell? Do you see any evidence for them or are they the result of a mash-up of fear, hope and immature thinking? — TheMadFool

Dreams have got to figure in, I think. We can see dead people in our dreams. We can even have illuminating conversations with them. Then we might dream of Heaven for ourselves and Hell for others in a fit of rage. Have you seen the new season of Black Mirror? It's interesting to see technological versions of Heaven and Hell. They aren't called that in the show, but it's the same idea.

For what it's worth, I would indeed look to hope and fear --and also to love and hate. For the most part it hurts to be critically minded all the time. It's hard work. The natural tendency is to daydream. About half way through the day I like to just lay down and let my mind drift. I call it 'alpha wave time,' though I don't know if alpha is the right wave. It's a break from directed realistic-critical thinking (which is mature thinking, I suppose.) What fascinates me is that mature thinking helps us survive, but immature thinking involves the kind of stuff that makes it fun to survive. At the moment, the tension between these kinds of thinking seems central to philosophy to me.

What fascinates me is that mature thinking helps us survive, but immature thinking involves the kind of stuff that makes it fun to survive — dog

(Y)

Perhaps my cateogries aren't well-formed. Thanks.