Materialism, Idealism or mentalism?

[Little Idiot]

Hello :)

I am a follower of the Paul Brunton philosophy; mentalism. (cards on the table from the off, thats my style). Having been a 'practicing mentalist' for a couple of decades and devoting my life to spiritual service, I decided to have a reality check by touching down in the Richard Dawkins Forum and I have been active there for a few weeks (same user name). Eventually I found it quite tiring having to fend off the materialists. People are not as open minded in the 'free thinking oasis' as I was hoping.

Specifically, in addition to saying 'hi', I do have a question; I was wondering do 'we' the idealists have much of a presence here on the forum, or am I gonna be just another crazy? Not that it puts me off being just another crazy, I am used to that role by now.

[paco]

The genius mind is not crazy it is insane!

[Little Idiot]

Better not claim to be a genius then ;)

[Carl G]

How do you define those three -isms?

Welcome to the forum.

[Mohamed]

I've done sume short research on Paul Brunton Philosophy.
But I'm not getting a clear view of it.
Can you explain what it is about in a few sentences?

[Little Idiot]

I will try to encapsulate mentalism, an entire philosophy of the human situation into a few sentences. There is much more depth and subtle teaching, this is a crude overview, obviously.

Mentalism is a form of idealism, I think of it as a completion of idealism. It teaches that all the cosmos is a play of ideas in consciousness, including the physical world. The physical is an appearance in consciousness of reality and hence is a form of reality, but not an ultimate form of reality. It sets up Ultimate Truth as an unchanging truth, which is the highest goal of philosophy. It demostrates that to attain such a goal requires a synthesis of all ways of knowing and experienceing availble to a man.
It teaches that the world is an idea, called the World Idea, this includes bodies, brains etc. The World Idea is a product of the World Consciousness, which is a requirement to explain how the world can exist without conscious entities in it, and to explain the consistency of the physical world. A dream is the product of the individual consciousness. Each individual consciousness arises within the larger World Consciousness like waves within an ocean. Each consciousness being rooted in the World Consciousness experiences the World Idea and only knows the individuals interpretation of it (DQ’s construction). It appears to the individual as an external physical world by the process of externalization, like a dream, visualization or hallucination (obviously an idea) can appear as a physical external environment.
It teaches the existence of the Void beyond time and explains how the three World Idea, World Consciousness and Void are really all the same, but appear different from our human perspective within time.
It teaches that there is a spiritual path, and explains this path. It shows that cause and effect only apply in time, beyond time non-causality applies. This is the thrust of my post here in the forum regarding DQ’s excellent little book ‘wisdom of the infinite.’

[Little Idiot]

How do you define those three -isms?

Welcome to the forum.

Thanks for the welcome. Here is what I mean by the three -isms.

I call 'materialism' (although some of the materialists prefer the term physicalism) any belief system based on the existance of matter independent of the mind. This lead to fake questions like 'how does the brain cause consiousness?' Anyone who thinks there is a physical cause for consciosness in the brain for example, I would class as a materialist.

Idealism, to me, means that the philosophy has seen through matter as nothing more than an assumption we put onto our sensation-based-construction of the world. However the idealism philosophy does not go to the largest possible degree with the concepts. Idealists would (I imagine) see that the consciousness causes the brain, the brain does not cause consciousness.

menatlism is summed up in a few sentances in my post above above.

[Ryan Rudolph]

LI,

The materialist view does have quite a bit of weight in this world. For instance: if you damage your brain in an accident, it can extinguish a significant degree of consciousness, and you can live in a hospital bed as a brain dead zombie. Or if you are born with down-syndrome or alcohol fetal syndrome, or if you are thrown around as an infant, the quality of your consciousness can be affected forever. So In this regard, the assumption of materialism is a very strong one.

And your mentalist view that all the cosmos is a play of ideas in consciousness makes sense, but if you try to generalize into metaphysical claims, it is impossible to logically prove.

[Little Idiot]

LI,

The materialist view does have quite a bit of weight in this world. For instance: if you damage your brain in an accident, it can extinguish a significant degree of consciousness, and you can live in a hospital bed as a brain dead zombie. Or if you are born with down-syndrome or alcohol fetal syndrome, or if you are thrown around as an infant, the quality of your consciousness can be affected forever. So In this regard, the assumption of materialism is a very strong one.

Yes, there is a causal relationship between brain and consiousness, but it is not that brain causes consciousness.
There is a link between brain and consiousness, severing the link = death, imparing the link = brain death, unusual states etc.
I do not deny a connection, I assert most of us just dont understand it correctly.

Think of it like this;
A piano is a requirement for music, but a piano is not the cause of music.
No piano, no music. Bad piano, bad music.
A brain is a requirment for human conscious experience in the waking world, but a brain is not the cause of the consciousness.
No brain, no consciousness. Bad brain, bad consciousness.
This is not intended as a proof, just an illustration.

And your mentalist view that all the cosmos is a play of ideas in consciousness makes sense, but if you try to generalize into metaphysical claims, it is impossible to logically prove.

Correct, logic alone will not do that.
However, if we form a synthesis of all our ways of knowing; logic, reason, intuition and experience we can prove it, know it, more accuratly we can be it.

David Quinn, in his 'construction' points out how we only ever know an interpretation of the world. I say that we only ever know the construction as an object of consiousness (an idea).
This shows us two things
1. I am consious (of something).
2. There is an object of consciousness (the construction).

To build the philosophy of mentalism we go on from here without adding any assumptions, this is called a 'zero assumption axiom'. If we start from a right observation and make no more assumptions, and we check each step of reasoning for error we can move securely from established fact to establishment of a new fact without error.

To go on from here and say the construction is made of matter is to make an assumption regarding the nature of the construction. We never know matter, only our idea about matter. We have no actual proof of what matter is, and sense appearance is known to be a poor judge of reality. Yes, the construction is a physical appearance, that I do not dispute. But I do dispute that the physical appearance is matter, and I dispute it by pointing out it is an assumption, not a fact. To introduce assumptions based on nothing more than appearance and expectation is to introduce the possibility of, and indeed probability for error.

[Is.]

All this talk about consciousness being somehow independent of the brain springs out of our primal fear of death. It's that simple.

Li, the sooner you accept that impermanance, chaos and change are part of nature, the sooner will you be able to experience true immortality.

When the great Zen master Fa-ch'ang was dying, a squirrel screeched out on the roof. "It's just this," he said, "and nothing more."

[Little Idiot]

All this talk about consciousness being somehow independent of the brain springs out of our primal fear of death. It's that simple.

Li, the sooner you accept that impermanance, chaos and change are part of nature, the sooner will you be able to experience true immortality.

When the great Zen master Fa-ch'ang was dying, a squirrel screeched out on the roof. "It's just this," he said, "and nothing more."

Who is said to have said that? the squirrel (Zen B.S.) or the master (Zen Wisdom)?

You mean to say that you hold the view consciousness is caused by the brain?
Such a view is gross materialism, have you never been free from your body?

I do know that impermanence and change are part of nature, infact, it all does nothing more than change. Paradoxically the only thing that doesnt change; is that all will change. As Buddha said humans are not beings but becomings. We live on the pin point of the moment, we experience time in series one moment becoming the next, and it is hard for us to even conceive the eternal as all time in parallel, all time symultaneous. But this is real being, this is the eternal now; eternity is not just a lot of series moments, a lot of time. We all live in the moment; Dr. Phill would say focus here and now, be present, but thats in the moment, not in the eternal Now.

EDIT to explain the esoteric comments above; we know time is a construct of the mind (right?) so time is an appearance, or an illusion.
Therefore ultimatly there is no past, there is no future, so how can there be now?

[Is.]

I do know that impermanence and change are part of nature, infact, it all does nothing more than change. Paradoxically the only thing that doesnt change; is that all will change. As Buddha said humans are not beings but becomings. We live on the pin point of the moment, we experience time in series one moment becoming the next, and it is hard for us to even conceive the eternal as all time in parallel, all time symultaneous. But this is real being, this is the eternal now; eternity is not just a lot of series moments, a lot of time. We all live in the moment; Dr. Phill would say focus here and now, be present, but thats in the moment, not in the eternal Now.

EDIT to explain the esoteric comments above; we know time is a construct of the mind (right?) so time is an appearance, or an illusion.
Therefore ultimatly there is no past, there is no future, so how can there be now?

Who are you trying to impress?

]...have you never been free from your body?

Relatively speaking, no - consciousness depends on the brain for its existence. If this was not true, paranormal powers would be possible, whereas this has never been proven. Speaking from truth - there is no I who is either one with, or different from, the body. If this was not true, an I would be analytically findable, whereas it is not.

[Little Idiot]

I do know that impermanence and change are part of nature, infact, it all does nothing more than change. Paradoxically the only thing that doesnt change; is that all will change. As Buddha said humans are not beings but becomings. We live on the pin point of the moment, we experience time in series one moment becoming the next, and it is hard for us to even conceive the eternal as all time in parallel, all time symultaneous. But this is real being, this is the eternal now; eternity is not just a lot of series moments, a lot of time. We all live in the moment; Dr. Phill would say focus here and now, be present, but thats in the moment, not in the eternal Now.

EDIT to explain the esoteric comments above; we know time is a construct of the mind (right?) so time is an appearance, or an illusion.
Therefore ultimatly there is no past, there is no future, so how can there be now?

Who are you trying to impress?

Sorry, I got carried away. Not trying to impress anyone. Just trying to describe the eternal.

]...have you never been free from your body?

Relatively speaking, no - consciousness depends on the brain for its existence. If this was not true, paranormal powers would be possible, whereas this has never been proven. Speaking from truth - there is no I who is either one with, or different from, the body. If this was not true, an I would be analytically findable, whereas it is not.

Not sure I agree with you on paranormal powers. Just saying that consciousness causes the individual's own interpretation of the world is the same thing as DQ's construction and void, exept I point out the construction must be constructed by consciousness and is therefore an object of consciousness (an idea), otherwise exactly the same. Nobody says DQ supports paranormal, so why do I?
The subjective experience of floating above the body is well known, how true it is objectivly is another thing, and as ultimatly its all a construction by the individual, a subjective experience its not a point I am worried about at this stage. But thats not really the point here, which is; I do not accept the belief in a mental world which appears as external and physical implies the belief in paranrmal powers.

The 'I' is the observer of the body, a subject not an object. It is not analytically findable because it is a subject who knows the body, who knows experience, not a part of the body, nor an object of experience. I am awareness, not something to be aware of. The unseen observer, the witness self.

[Is.]

I am awareness, not something to be aware of. The unseen observer, the witness self.

Say that you roughly got 7 senses. Sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, feeling and thought. (Thought here = discrimination, perception, volition, memory; all these function like they do because of conditioning.)

Do this experiment - can you remove any of these at over a duration of say, 5 seconds, and still have a distinct feeling of I? Yes, you can be blind and still experience an I. Yes, you can be deaf and still experience an I. Yes, you can be unable to smell and still experience an I. Yes, you can experience a complete lack of physical sensation, but still experience an I. Yes, you can be unable to taste and still experience an I. Yes, you can feel nothing whatsoever and still experience an I. Yes, you can be paralyzed and without any volition and still experience and I. And yes, you have certainly experienced a time when there was no thought whatsoever - and there was still an experience of I.

So we can remove them one at a time and still experience an I. This means that what you are is not any of those senses, because you experience your I as continous, and if it was true that you really were one with any of those senses, it would not be possible to have done that experiment.

Now, do the experiment again, but this time, when you remove the next sense, don't put the last one back in. So, first remove sight, then hearing, smell, touch, taste ... what is your experience? A complete void. In that void arises feelings and thoughts. Now remove feelings ... what is your experience? A complete void in which only thought arises; thought commenting on this or that. "Wow - a void! This is extraordinary!" perhaps it is commenting. Now, remove even thought, which is to say, remove that inner commentator, all discrimination, all memory ... what is your experience?

If you now say "pure Awareness", you are entering a delusion. The correct answer of course: there is no experience at all. To call it either awareness or no awareness is completely senseless. Subject and object are wholly dependent on eachother for their existence. You can not have the one without the other; there is no "pure external world", there is no "pure Witness". Without an object, a subject does not exist. Without a subject, an object does not exist. Nagarjuna, Essay on the Mind of Enlightenment:

A knower realizes an object known
Without an object known, there is no knower.

So, there is no truly existing I. The I is merely conceptually imputed onto the 7 senses. Just like there are no truly existing cars; cars are merely conceptually imputed onto their many parts.

[Ataraxia]

Hmmm ,thought provoking post "Is", welcome to the forum. You too, "Little idiot", I quite enjoyed a number of your posts over on Dawkins.

[Little Idiot]

Very nice post Is.

I agree you are not the senses, as I said earlier, you are the witness or knower of the sense. Your thought experiment of removing the senses does not reduce the sense of I because it removes the senses not the awareness behind the senses - the witness self.

You quote Nagarjuna, Essay on the Mind of Enlightenment:
A knower realizes an object known
Without an object known, there is no knower.

and this is true in the realm of the physical. It is hard without refering to the original context if Nagarjuna is refering only to physical.
I would hesitate to agree on the mental level, Nirvikalpa is the experience of no time, no space (nir = without, vi = (to) change, kalpa = (period of) time. Google it if you dont believe me)
On this basis I am not convinced that we can refuse the existance of awareness without an object. I also say Nagarjuna knew what he was talking about, and thus he knew of Nirvikalpa, and therefore I speculate he was talking only about the physical realm.
I assert awareness is possible without an object of awareness, or the knower is in relation to the known, but can be experienced without the known. This is non-duality experience; in non-duality one is not aware ofthe void as another (thats duality) one is awere of the void only by being the void - the one without a second, there is only void, no object, no ego (an object) no time (object) no thing (object); only awareness as void; not awareness of void.
In other words the quote of Nagarjuna is in regard to the world of duality. I believe he is asserting there is no knower in duality without both halves of the dual; knower and known, but I stop short of thinking he is asserting there is no knower in the non-dual. Maybe I should say there is knowing in the non-dual, to remove the personal reference of know-er.

[Little Idiot]

Hmmm ,thought provoking post "Is", welcome to the forum. You too, "Little idiot", I quite enjoyed a number of your posts over on Dawkins.

Hi, and thanks.
I dont recognise the name from RDF, whats your user name over there?

[Ataraxia]

The_Epicurean. I haven't posted much recently, but I don't mind reading it from time to time. As you said somewhere, the materialists are tiresome in their smugness at times.

[Blair]

So, there is no truly existing I. The I is merely conceptually imputed onto the 7 senses.

It seems that way now because your I is currently asleep. When it wakes up and lets you know, you will very clearly get who I is.

[Is.]

This is non-duality experience...

Nope. It is what is usually called a "causal" or "formless" absorption. This is because as long as there is a Witness, there is duality. This is very simple to understand; it is just illogical and nonsensical to assume a witness without a witnessed. Can you assume a drinker without a drink? Fuel without fire? Rider without a horse?

Non-duality occurs when the witness dissolves together with the witnessed and there is just ineffable ultimate reality - tathātā.

welcome to the forum

Thank you!

It seems that way now because your I is currently asleep.

Show me the I. If it exists, you must be able to demonstrate it; it must be analytically findable. I've looked everywhere, but haven't found it. I'm still open about the idea though, so go ahead.

[Ataraxia]

Show me the I. If it exists, you must be able to demonstrate it; it must be analytically findable. I've looked everywhere, but haven't found it. I'm still open about the idea though, so go ahead.

Even David Hume was fairly sceptical:

For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself, I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I never can catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. When my perceptions are removed for any time, as by sound sleep; so long am I insensible of myself, and may truly be said not to exist. And were all my perceptions removed by death, and could I neither think, nor feel, nor see, nor love, nor hate after the dissolution of my body, I should be entirely annihilated, nor do I conceive what is farther requisite to make me a perfect non-entity. If any one, upon serious and unprejudiced reflection thinks he has a different notion of himself, I must confess I call reason no longer with him. All I can allow him is, that he may be in the right as well as I, and that we are essentially different in this particular. He may, perhaps, perceive something simple and continued, which he calls himself; though I am certain there is no such principle in me. - Treatise of Human Nature

[Little Idiot]

This is non-duality experience...

Nope. It is what is usually called a "causal" or "formless" absorption. This is because as long as there is a Witness, there is duality. This is very simple to understand; it is just illogical and nonsensical to assume a witness without a witnessed. Can you assume a drinker without a drink? Fuel without fire? Rider without a horse?

Non-duality occurs when the witness dissolves together with the witnessed and there is just ineffable ultimate reality - tathātā.

I may be mixing up terms here, but if I am corrects then tathātā refers to 'seeing reality in the mundane' the important bit being 'in the mundane' because this is whats distinguishes it for Nirvikapla where only void is. Do not misunderstand me, I am saying it is higher, let me explain how I understand it and see if we agree;
I use the terms Nirvikapla to mean void in trance, no subject-ibject duality and no world. It is the more pure non-dual experience.

I use the terms Sahaja to mean knowing the void in the world - the state of the active sage; seeing the real within the physical (mundane). 'This is being in the world but not of the world'. This is not as pure as Nirvikapla but is higher because it is a none trance state and permanent. The trancs is by definition intermitant and therefore lesser experience. It is higher because the Sage is active, not withdrawn; the philosophy of wisdom leads to action in the world not withdrawl from the world.
If I understand your term tathātā it is equal to my use of Sahaja, I believe its the Buddhist version of the same state.

However, in relation to our discussion the two are both non-dual experiences. I say Nirvikapla is not known as a subject-object state, the knowing power is knowing itself as the void with no object, it is not looking at the void which is a much lower dualistic idea where the mystic looks at his self-created image of the void.

[Is.]

Ataraxia, thanks for that Hume quote. It's funny with most Western philosopher's though. To them, the philosophical issues are merely conceptual, just something they think about, and then have dinner, or whatever. Never do they bring the reasoning into themselves in a transformative fashion, as is generally the case in the East. I wonder why this is the case, perhaps because they are so utterly fed up with dogmatic and traditional theistic religions that they don't dare to explore the trans-personal in fear they might regress back into the anti-analytical darkness of the mythic Abrahamic traditions.

I use the terms Nirvikapla to mean void in trance, no subject-ibject duality and no world. It is the more pure non-dual experience ... I use the terms Sahaja to mean knowing the void in the world - the state of the active sage; seeing the real within the physical (mundane).

Hi, I can generally agree with you here. Two points though:

1: By calling the Nirvikapa state more "pure" it is clear that you have not a deep insight. Because, emptiness and dependent arising are not two different entities. Emptiness exist because of what is dependently arisen (what you call 'the mundane') and the dependently arisen exist because it has the character of emptiness. Therefore, the mundane is pure. (Note, it doesn't "become" pure when X happens or something like that, it is pure, "from the start" for lack of better words.) The void is not separate from the mundane, as in your perception. You want to posit an causal void in which some Base-Consciousness exist though because you want this to be the life-boat for your ego when your biological body faces cessation.

2: We need to remember that when we speak about Nirvikalpa and Sahaj that these are 3-person objective descriptions of a 1-person phenomenological experience. Therefore, it sounds like we can point to a person apparently having these Nirvikalpa and Sahaj experiences. But for the supposed person in the supposed Nirvikalpa or Sahaj state, what is experienced is not someone-having-an-experience-of-X. What is experienced is non-dual, impersonal ultimate reality, directly and non-conceptually. Look at this guy for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1xq2tB2 ... annel_page Taking a 3-person perspective, it looks like he is having an experience of some sort. But to "him" (1-p) there is no experience, there is only the truth of non-separation (no 1-p or 3-p); tathātā.

[Ataraxia]

Ataraxia, thanks for that Hume quote. It's funny with most Western philosopher's though. To them, the philosophical issues are merely conceptual, just something they think about, and then have dinner, or whatever. Never do they bring the reasoning into themselves in a transformative fashion, as is generally the case in the East. I wonder why this is the case, perhaps because they are so utterly fed up with dogmatic and traditional theistic religions that they don't dare to explore the trans-personal in fear they might regress back into the anti-analytical darkness of the mythic Abrahamic traditions.

.

Yes, your intuition has merit. One has to be somewhat sympathetic to guys like Hume. The 'Age of reason' guys like him were breaking new ground after 1600 years of dark ages dogmatic Christian group-think.

He was rather underrated in my view - one of the better Western Philosophers. There is an eastern flavour to quite a bit of his work, yet he never had exposure to Eastern metaphysics(as far as I know).

[Is.]

There is an eastern flavour to quite a bit of his work, yet he never had exposure to Eastern metaphysics(as far as I know).

Yeah, that's awesome. In my favourite philosophical work of all time - the Mulamadhyamakakarika by Nagarjuna, the commentator Jay L. Garfield draws quite alot of parallels between Nagarjuna and Hume.