OK, so being a bit more obvious: there is a difference between "I see the cup on the table" and "The cup is on the table".
How do you characterise that difference? — Banno
I don't think it is arbitrary; it is the basis of being able to talk about "you" and 'me" in the first place. — John
There is no right or wrong, just differences in what is remembered.
— Rich
I don't agree. When he thinks he is Johan Ek he is wrong.
That is to say, it is Michael Thomas Boatwright who thinks he is Johan Ek. It is not John Ek that others think is Michael Thomas Boatwright. — Banno
Here's the contention again:
An individual is not identified by a substance or a bundle of properties, but in most cases by our treating the individual in a certain way.
If you like, an individual is an individual only because we place it in that role in our language games.
"We" is used here, not "I", so as to show that this does not take place in a private language. — Banno
Indeed, and they are also anicca - impermanent.They're 'anatta' which means 'not self'. — Wayfarer
I haven't even mentioned this, I was talking about your assertion that the Five Skandhas don't reincarnate. If the Five Skandhas don't reincarnate, and reincarnation does not happen on a soul (read permanent essence), then on what does it occur?Buddhism doesn't accept reincarnation, strictly speaking, in the sense of there being a person or soul which transmigrates. — Wayfarer
That might be my authoritarian tendency, but the fact that it is "authoritarian" doesn't mean it is wrong. It is a fact that the religions make exclusive claims. It is also a fact that God would revealed himself across the whole planet, not only in one place. But these revelations are partial.Well, there's your authoritarian tendency again. — Wayfarer
Who said that the revealed truth is obvious? On the contrary, it is not obvious, and this is an argument for Christianity not against Christianity. Is it not Christianity which tells us that God is a "hidden God" a God who hides Himself?You would think if the revealed truth of Christ was obvious, how could that have happened? — Wayfarer
Let them at least learn the nature of the religion they are attacking, before they attack it. If this religion boasted of having a clear vision of God, and of possessing Him plain and unveiled, then to say that nothing we see in the world reveals Him with this degree of clarity would indeed be to attack it. But it says, on the contrary, that man is in darkness and far from God, that He has hidden Himself from man’s knowledge, and that the name He has given Himself in the Scriptures is in fact The Hidden God (Is 45:15). Therefore if it seeks to establish these two facts: that God has in the church erected visible signs by which those who sincerely seek Him may recognize Him, and that he has nevertheless so concealed them that He will only be perceived by those who seek Him with all their hearts, what advantage can the attackers gain when, while admitting that they neglect to seek for the truth, they yet cry that nothing reveals it? For the very darkness in which they lie, and for which they blame the Church, establishes one of her two claims, without invalidating the other, and also, far from destroying her doctrine, confirms it — Blaise Pascal
A "pluralistic" world is just the effect of pride and selfishness, of man who thinks he can, alone, by his own efforts, reach up to God. A man who wants a God who is in His own image, rather than the other way around. That is much of what you yourself are doing. But on the contrary, Christ says the He is the Way - and none will come to the Father but through Him.How could it be otherwise in a pluralistic world? Of course there is new age rubbish, but it's also a fact that human culture and consciousness really has crossed a threshold into a completely new kind of culture - a new age, in fact. — Wayfarer
I don't find it hard to agree with both sides of this. From the outside, one is dealing with the continuity of the body, which is born and continues 'the same body' until it dies. And that can be true, at the same time as, from the inside, he is not the man he was. There is a tradition - is it Native American? - of changing one's name after a life-changing experience (like marriage, for instance?). — unenlightened
OK. This is a path of philosophical thought worth pursuing. Science and neurologists will not pursue this line of thinking. For them something is wrong and has to be fixed. However, a philosopher, outside of academia, can begin to inquire into new ways of looking at memory and identity that might open up completely new ways of viewing mind, body and spirituality with enormous amount of practical benefits, e.g. how do drugs affect the body's constructive and reconstructive memory mechanisms and are they creating permanent damage? — Rich
I deny that our real self is born, not that what we most commonly attribute in common language as the self was born. That self was indeed born.Most people do not remember their birth, but apart from Agustino, few deny that they were born. — unenlightened
I have been waiting to read this for years. It has felt like only the Owl in the tree and me understood the necessity of truly embracing the absurd.Chaos theory was once fashionable; and I am rather fond of the idea of a strange loop — Banno
I had understood that this demonstration was much the same as that used to show that individuation requires substance. — Banno
I apologise for mischaracterising you. Please, show me the logical demonstration you mention. — Banno
Waves do not have the ocean and the ocean does not have the waves. — Rich
They are one and the same. It all depends upon on how one views it. There is an ocean. There are the waves. There is the ocean. It is a continuous, inseparable whole. I do not observe any gaps anywhere. — Rich
It's profoundly obvious, that the ocean does have waves, and not vise versa. — Metaphysician Undercover
Simply ask yourself, can you imagine a body of water without waves, and the answer is yes. Then, can you imagine a wave without an underlying substance which is waving, and the answer is no. — Metaphysician Undercover
The ocean is the ocean. It is continuous. We make the distinctions, when viewing the ocean from a given perspective. One can turn it upside down and say all the waves contain the ocean. There are and there isn't one or the other or both.
If one can't make distinctions between the ocean and the waves within it, there's no reason to make a distinction between the Earth and the oceans and lands within it or the universe and the objects within it. — Thanatos Sand
There are practical reasons too make distinctions and there are practical reasons not to.
Thanatos Sand Every symbolic distinction has a practical application
Take consciousness. If consciousness is the self, then who is the one who is conscious? — Agustino
So when you sleep your self disappears? :sThe self, which is the same as consciousness. Consiousness is conscious of itself. — BlueBanana
So when you sleep your self disappears? :s — Agustino
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