What is that worldview? Is it individual or common to all Buddhist monks? What are we to make of divergent views within and between Buddhist schools of thought? — Fooloso4
What do they say about the nature of reality? Why should we accept that what they describe is actual knowledge into the nature of reality? — Fooloso4
That a worldview has benefits for those who hold it only shows that holding this worldview has benefits, not that the worldview corresponds reality. An unrealistic or false worldview might also have benefits. — Fooloso4
The article Buddha's Brain: Neuroplasticity and Meditation says, "When the framework of neuroplasticity is applied to meditation, we suggest that the mental training of meditation is fundamentally no different than other forms of skill acquisition that can induce plastic changes in the brain." — wonderer1
Isn't that enough? The fact that thought can have similar effects to practical physical enaction is meaningful to me. — Pantagruel
You had said there were "unique" features, so I was curious as to support for this uniqueness. — wonderer1
Lots of questions that don't address the question I asked. — javra
That worldview is Buddhism. Just as physicalism is an umbrella concept to many a variety, so too is Buddhism. — javra
... it was about sufficient justification to uphold that it might be, — javra
Something fishy about this affirmation. — javra
Russell's universals unlike Forms are not causes. — Fooloso4
If someone claims to have mathematical knowledge it can be demonstrated. Can the same be said of someone who claims to have mystical knowledge? — Fooloso4
They claim to know something we do not. You seem inclined to believe them. I am not. — Fooloso4
First please demonstrate why idealism implies anti-realism in the first place.
— Wayfarer
I never claimed or implied "idealism implies anti-realism — 180 Proof
So, again, please demonstrate how, as you claim, 'the established facts of evolution and cosmology are "equally compatible" with idealism (i.e. antirealism) as they are with physicalism'. — 180 Proof
In Platonist philosophy, forms are causal only in the sense of serving as models or archetypes. — Wayfarer
(99d-100e)On each occasion I put down as hypothesis whatever account I judge to be mightiest; and whatever seems to me to be consonant with this, I put down as being true, both about cause and about all the rest, while what isn’t, I put down as not true ...
I am going to try to show you the kind of cause with which I have concerned myself. I turn back to those oft-mentioned things and proceed from them. I assume the existence of a Beautiful, itself by itself, of a Good and a Great and all the rest ...
Consider then, he said, whether you share my opinion as to what follows, for I think that, if there is anything beautiful besides the Beautiful itself, it is beautiful for no other reason than that it shares in that Beautiful, and I say so with everything. Do you agree to this sort of cause?
... I no longer understand or recognize those other sophisticated causes, and if someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a bright color or shape or any such thing, I ignore these other reasons—for all these confuse me—but I simply, naively and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist on the precise nature of the relationship, but that I no longer understand or recognize those other sophisticated causes, and if someone tells me that a thing is beautiful because it has a bright color or shape or any such thing, I ignore these other reasons—for all these confuse me—but I simply, naively and perhaps foolishly cling to this, that nothing else makes it beautiful other than the presence of, or the sharing in, or however you may describe its relationship to that Beautiful we mentioned, for I will not insist on the precise nature of the relationship, but that all beautiful things are beautiful by the Beautiful. That, I think, is the safest answer I can give myself or anyone else.” That, I think, is the safest answer I can give myself or anyone else.
(97d)I thought that if this were so, the directing Mind would direct everything and arrange each thing in the way that was best.
As mystical insight is experiential and first-person, the criteria for assessing it are different to those of mathematics and science, — Wayfarer
But there is an abundant cross-cultural literature describing it, not that I expect many here to be interested in it. — Wayfarer
But then, you're making ignorance the yardstick for how their claims are to be judged. — Wayfarer
Actually my questions are in response to the question you asked. — Fooloso4
If that worldview is based on knowledge of reality then why not a single unified view or description of reality? — Fooloso4
How can the question of whether there is sufficient justification that it might be when there is divergence with regard to what it might be? — Fooloso4
Unless I misunderstood you, you argued in favor of the benefit of holding "the Buddhist worldview." My point is that there can be different worldviews that are beneficial. — Fooloso4
they do not yield determinate knowledge of anything, unlike empirical investigations and logic/ mathematics. — Janus
Is Socrates referring to his own mind or the human mind of Mind. I might say universal Mind. — Fooloso4
The strongly visual imagery and the references to a “place” may incline us to read this as a voyage to ‘another world.’ But Socrates has already warned us that he is telling not “what the soul actually is” but rather “what it is like” (246a5) and later expressly refers to this story as a “mythic hymn” (265c1). The “place above the sky” is not in fact a place, since what is ‘there’ has no shape or color, is not bodily at all. Rather, the flight is a mythic representation of the psychic, cognitive attainment of an intellectual apprehension of the intelligible identities, ‘themselves by themselves,’ that inform and are displayed by, or appear in, sensible things. The forms are metaphorically represented in spatial terms as ‘outside’ the entire cosmos in that they are not themselves sensible things, not additional members of the sensible world.
The problem is, how can we assess it (mystical claims)? — Fooloso4
Such stories are weak evidence for anything real corresponding to them. Should we accept that there are Olympian or Egyptian gods? — Fooloso4
I assume you do not accept every claim about things you do not know. — Fooloso4
I think all of our readings are by default modern. We cannot escape being modern. It is our cave. — Fooloso4
Exactly where that line gets drawn that you call "determinate knowledge" is a function of innate ability, expertise, and experience. — Pantagruel
I think it is fairly clear what is determinate knowledge and what is not. — Janus
Only basic empirical observations and mathematical and logical truths are known to be true. — Janus
In speaking of the fear of religion, I don't mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper--namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself. I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that.
My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world. Instead they become epiphenomena, generated incidentally by a process that can be entirely explained by the operation of the non-teleological laws of physics on the material of which we and our environments are all composed. — Thomas Nagel
Sure, things that are trivially true are usually trivially evident. But some things are not trivially evident. And to people who lack the ability to comprehend the basis of organic chemistry, for example, there is a whole lot of determinate knowledge that is not clear. — Pantagruel
I assume that you are classifying privileged internal mental states as empirical observations then, since I know and experience the truth of my own experiences. — Pantagruel
Tell me this is not a factor in these discussions. :lol: — Wayfarer
purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world. — Thomas Nagel
You may or may not know "the truth of your own experiences" whatever that might mean. Assuming for the sake of argument that you do know, the point is that you are the only one, so such knowledge can never be intersubjectively corroborated. — Janus
As a brief justification, this because no human can be omniscient, — javra
Nothing in science is infallible or perfectly comprehensive — javra
How can the question of whether there is sufficient justification that it might be when there is divergence with regard to what it might be?
— Fooloso4
See the above mentioned. — javra
This is, or at least can be, part and parcel of an outlook termed perennialism. — javra
dismiss the possibility in such a manner that one then claims irrational others who find the possibility viable. — javra
I find that it boils down to underlying suppositions of physicalism vs. non-physicalism. — javra
Does that mean that at least some of whatyou claim[the Buddhist claims] the Buddhist knows about reality that the rest of us do not know is not something known by the Buddhist after all? — Fooloso4
Where have I said that? — Fooloso4
I'm still only part-way through this book ... — Wayfarer
If you look into the various mystical religious movements - sufism, Zen, Vedanta, Christian Mysticism - you will find there is extensive literature, a recognised lineage of teachers, in short a framework within which these disciplines are transmitted and made meaningful. — Wayfarer
But this is what hermenuetics is - intepretation of ancient texts, — Wayfarer
Also consider 'mythos' as indicative of stages in the development of consciousness e.g. Julian Jayne's Bicameral Mind ... — Wayfarer
I think all of our readings are by default modern. We cannot escape being modern. It is our cave.
— Fooloso4
Socrates says that the free prisoner would think that the world outside the cave was superior to the world he experienced in the cave ... — Wayfarer
509B “I assume you will agree that the sun bestows not only the ability to be seen upon visible objects, but also their generation and increase and nurture, though the sun itself is not generation.” — ibid
In all humility, I think this accounts for a lot of theoutrageresistance that advocacy of philosophical idealism provokes. Moderns don't want the world to be like that. — Wayfarer
If I don't have certainty of my own experience I can't very well have certainty about anything else, since anything else will always be an aspect of that experience. — Pantagruel
As far as being "reliably trained," you oversimplify. Not everyone can be reliably trained, it requires at least some aptitude — Pantagruel
Conversely, for people with the appropriate aptitude, the contention is that they are being educated with spiritual knowledge, whose broadened awareness is the practical result. Knowledge of the human spirit evolves right along with civilization. Some people even think that is what civilization is. Hegel, to name one. As well as the hordes who have tried to follow in his footsteps. — Pantagruel
That bears directly upon the reference to generative power in the Republic — Paine
We have been arguing about Gerson's thesis since I got here. Much of that dispute involves how to read that difference in Plato's language. In view of these years of wrangling over texts and their meaning, do you see the opposition to Gerson's thesis as only a part of this one?:
"In all humility, I think this accounts for a lot of the resistance that advocacy of philosophical idealism provokes. Moderns don't want the world to be like that." — Paine
The idea of the esoteric, secrets and the hidden may be problematic, especially as it involves the mysterious and the unknown. In general, the unveiling of 'the unknown, may be more helpful as opposed to it remaining unknown. The idea of 'the hidden' in philosophy may be problematic, as if trying to go beyond 'gaps', but it may end up with obscurity rather than any meaningful explanabtions. In this way, the ideas of the esoteric may involve more of a demystification rather than clarification of ideas and understanding. — Jack Cummins
Philosophers are traditionally and for the most part elitist. They regard mankind as children that they must hide the truth from. — Tom Storm
Get involved in philosophical discussions about knowledge, truth, language, consciousness, science, politics, religion, logic and mathematics, art, history, and lots more. No ads, no clutter, and very little agreement — just fascinating conversations.