interested in taoism for most of my life. I loved Le Guin's Earthsea books and the old Kung Fu tv show as a kid. Years later, for whatever reason, I started reading the Tao Te Ching , and immediately recognized it. — Patterner
I don't know much about Buddhism, but I gather it goes much farther than taoism does in the direction you're speaking of. But I believe both offer paths to a life that is more content and less frantic. Which probably also helps people be physically healthier. — Patterner
Heck, even if it isn't truth, I see the value. (I suppose that's a matter of opinion.) — Patterner
a rejection of our individuality. The universe allows for me, and for you, to exist. Why should we not embrace and explore this? — Patterner
What would have been accomplished by having tried to deny the individual point of acute consciousness when it was possible?
And what would have been the point if there is not a universal consciousness, and this is it? — Patterner
I believed Santa Claus was real.
I believed people live forever.
I believed if people die, then they come back to life in a few days of rest, after seeing the same action movie actor being killed in a movie, then a few weeks later, he was back in another movie fighting the gangsters.
I believed that old folks are born old, young folks like me are born young, and it will be like that forever.
I believed that my parents might be God, because they could buy me nice things.
I believed that the world is the size of my town where I lived.
I believed that when I am asleep, the world disappears, and I am the centre of the universe.
... etc etc. — Corvus
I am not sure what other illusions I might still have. — Corvus
According to Hinduism, the entire universe is an illusion — Truth Seeker
- quoting fromIn the Advaita Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy, māyā, "appearance", is "the powerful force that creates the cosmic illusion that the phenomenal world is real".
It's written in their holy book. I don't agree with them. I think all religions are fiction made up by people. — Truth Seeker
Hindus believe their holy books are true. Just as Christians, Muslims and Jews believe their holy books to be true. Only the nonbelievers disbelieve the holy books of all religions. The holy books of all religions are self-contradictory and mutually contradictory. I have studied most religions.1. If it is a fiction, then why people have been deceived by it for so long time? 5000 years? Surely it takes 5 minutes for ordinary folks to know it is a fiction.
2. If it is a fiction, then what is a philosophical point of it? — Corvus
If it is a fiction, then why people have been deceived by it for so long time? 5000 years? Surely it takes 5 minutes for ordinary folks to know it is a fiction. — Corvus
You might have fear when you assert something you don't have concrete knowledge, evidence or experience, so you don't know what you are talking about. — Corvus
There are many hypotheses that can't be tested e.g. simulation hypothesis, illusion hypothesis, dream hypothesis, hallucination hypothesis, solipsism hypothesis, philosophical zombie hypothesis, panpsychism hypothesis, deism hypothesis, theism hypothesis, pantheism hypothesis, panentheism hypothesis, etc. Just because a hypothesis can't be tested it does not mean it is true or false. It just means that it is currently untestable.
When we try to determine the nature of that identity it eludes our grasp. — Janus
That is true when trying to grasp the identity of anything. Everything is moving.
So I’m not disagreeing with you, but I would not conclude from the difficulty of holding an identity fixed and unchanging that there is no self to seek to identify. — Fire Ologist
and I haven't suggested the self is not real either—as I said before we have a sense, and a consequent idea of it. That it is not determinable does not entail that it is not real. — Janus
…That said, experience itself (:wink:) is determinable only in terms of identity, and anyway what do we mean by 'real', so where does that leave us? — Janus
We only know the self inasmuch as we have a sense of self, and a consequent idea that there it is an entity with an identity. When we try to determine the nature of that identity it eludes our grasp. — Janus
If these "hypotheses" are untestable then not only can they not be proven, but even their likelihood cannot be established, — Janus
When we try to determine the nature of that identity it eludes our grasp. — Janus
That is true when trying to grasp the identity of anything. Everything is moving. — Fire Ologist
That said, experience itself (:wink:) is determinable only in terms of identity, and anyway what do we mean by 'real', so where does that leave us? — Janus
I agree here too. It is a pickle to be a real self that can’t be by itself, fixed and distinct as everything real is moving and dissolving any attempt at staying a unified identity.
We selves are living paradoxes. — Fire Ologist
The paradox of being a human: the self is, AND the self cannot be. Or with more texture: my sense of self is a sense of something that is already sensing and therefore, is real, AND, nothing I sense has a clear enough structure to be identifiable to be known as “real”, such as a “self”. — Fire Ologist
There is only the movements of becoming and the concomitant temporary settlements (beliefs), mechanisms creating all of our illusions. — ENOAH
It is a necessarily twisted topic. — ENOAH
Paradox of being human. The Fictional Mind thinks it is real, functions in knowing, but has no access to Reality. — ENOAH
The knower is ineluctably making up the knowledge. As soon as it gets close to reality, it is blocked by paradox. — ENOAH
The self is... the Body.
The self [which] cannot be...is the Subject, yet
Only the self which cannot be desires to be.
Because the self that is, is being, and only being. — ENOAH
There are many hypotheses that can't be tested e.g. simulation hypothesis, illusion hypothesis, dream hypothesis, hallucination hypothesis, solipsism hypothesis, philosophical zombie hypothesis, panpsychism hypothesis, deism hypothesis, theism hypothesis, pantheism hypothesis, panentheism hypothesis, etc. Just because a hypothesis can't be tested it does not mean it is true or false. It just means that it is currently untestable.
If these "hypotheses" are untestable then not only can they not be proven, but even their likelihood cannot be established, so of what possible significance could they be to our lives? Even if they were true what would that change? On what basis are they even interesting? Why should we waste any time or energy concerning ourselves with them? — Janus
Hindus believe their holy books are true. Just as Christians, Muslims and Jews believe their holy books to be true. Only the nonbelievers disbelieve the holy books of all religions. The holy books of all religions are self-contradictory and mutually contradictory. I have studied most religions. — Truth Seeker
If all the religions are fiction as you claim, then why do they keep believing in them for thousands of years?Most "Hindus" would say, [and I currently generally agree,] that vis a vis the only ultimate reality, everything projected into the world [as a representation of/by Mind] is ultimately a fiction and yet we have been deceived by it. And not just for a few millenia, but since the dawn of human history [as opposed to prehistoric human animals] — ENOAH
Philosophy of Religion doesn't deal with the legitimacy of the claims made by the religion. Philosophy of Religion is mainly interested in the linguistic and conceptual analysis of the religious scriptures and expressions.Isn't there a whole branch of philosophy called the Philosophy of Religion? — Truth Seeker
If all the religions are fiction as you claim, then why do they keep believing in them for thousands of years? — Corvus
But if you just label all the religions are fictions, then people might wonder what was the point of you even mentioning them in your posts. — Corvus
I don't know anything about Islam, Hindu, Buddhism or Christianity, but I used to think there might be something that is more than what non-believers see and believe.The believers of a particular religion believe their religion is true. This also spread their beliefs to their children. There is often a steep penalty against leaving the religion one is born it. For example, leaving Islam is punishable by death. This is how religions survive for thousands of years. — Truth Seeker
It seems to be sure that one thing common in religions is that it is beyond the rational thinking system. You kept brining in religions into your threads, so I was expecting that you might be saying something more significant than religions are fiction. Claiming that religions are fiction without solid arguments has no significance in philosophical discussions.Whether or not I believe in them, religions exist and billions of people believe in them and live their lives according to them and happily kill others for them. — Truth Seeker
It seems to be sure that one thing common in religions is that it is beyond the rational thinking system. You kept brining in religions into your threads, so I was expecting that you might be saying something more significant than religions are fiction. Claiming that religions are fiction without solid arguments has no significance in philosophical discussions. — Corvus
Distinguishing “beliefs” from the objects the beliefs are about (such as a self), and distinguishing these from “illusions” are all just illusory “distinctions” not to be “believed” and therefore you give me nothing to go on. — Fire Ologist
The only way to ponder about objectivity is to posit a mind or a self, but the only way to posit a self is to be able to distinguish identity at all, and the only way to talk about identity is with metaphysics about bodies, which becomes a battle between being and becoming, which leads to question language and logic, etc… — Fire Ologist
Compellingly enough put that you opened my mind up to how, I think, I can agree.The mind is a chameleon, a whisper of a fleeting thing, sure, but for flash instant moments, as real as anything else. — Fire Ologist
and, therefore, you give me nothing to go on.The paradox IS! — Fire Ologist
Self (the one that speaks and is spoken of), to me, is neither body nor body part.Self is still something distinguishable from the liver, the lungs and other parts, if it is body at all. — Fire Ologist
regardless of what the self is, the paradox is that it certainly exists, and certainly cannot exist — Fire Ologist
No need to dispense with any part of this as mere illusion. — Fire Ologist
Claiming that religions are fiction without solid arguments has no significance in philosophical discussions. — Corvus
How could religions be true when they contradict themselves and contradict each other and contradict what we know from evidence-based research? — Truth Seeker
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