GENIUS FORUMS

RobertGreenSky wrote:Nagarjuna, Bodhidharma, and Hui-neng were fighting for your heart; Quinn and Rowden are fighting for your adulation.

For what it's worth, Dave has my own adulation at the moment.

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Dave Toast quotes Nagarjuna:

Also from the Twelve Gate Treatise:

"Without worldly truth, ultimate truth cannot be obtained. Without obtaining ultimate truth, nirvana cannot be obtained.

The teaching by the Buddhas of the dharma has recourse to two truths:
The world-ensconced truth and the truth which is the highest sense

Those who do not know the distribution of the two kinds of truth
Do not know the profound "point" in the teaching of the Buddha.

The highest sense [of the truth] is not taught apart from practical behavior,
And without having understood the highest sense one cannot understand nirvana."

Good, clear words. So obvious and true. And yet almost completely neglected by the human race.

It is impossible to achieve anything spiritually without understanding. But understanding is precisely what the human race recoils from.

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RobertGreenSky wrote:

Dave Toast wrote:Nagarjuna's was an advanced teaching, spoken from the top of the mountain. You have to be so high up the mountain to hear that teaching clearly. In order to get up to the appropriate height to hear it clearly, one needs a clear and practiced understanding of the nature of truth and absolutes in order to expose and understand and practice emptiness in the first place.

Mr. Toast,

You haven't been to the mountain, you have been to Google, finding in its returns one of the lesser compositions attributed to Nagarjuna yet even then you do not make any case that what is taught at Genius Forum as 'ultimate truth' is paralleled in Nagarjuna. It is one thing to quote 'Without worldly truth, ultimate truth cannot be obtained. Without obtaining ultimate truth, nirvana cannot be obtained.' It is another thing to find in Nagarjuna that this 'ultimate truth' is verbal in its nature. It is still another thing to find in Nagarjuna or in Zen or in Daoism that this 'ultimate truth' (paramartha) has anything whatsoever to do with 'Totality', 'A=A', 'Quinn-Solway Conditionality', or any of the concepts you have obliviously accepted.

The Totality is equivalent to the Dao or Buddha-nature.

A=A is simply identifying or understanding. which is a prerequisite to enlightenment.

Conditionality is what Nagarjuna identified as cause and effect.

For example:

The Heart of Interdependent Origination

The whole world is cause and effect; excluding this, there is no sentient being. From factors which are empty, empty factors originate.

Those who impute origination to even very subtle entities are unwise and have not seen the meaning of conditioned origination.

There is nothing to be denied and nothing to be affirmed. See the real correctly, for he who sees the real correctly is released.

In this sutra alone, we have the Totality, conditionality and the importance of A=A.

What does 'transmission beyond words' mean to you, Mr. Toast? It is not verbal. It finds verbosity only afterward and then in the merest of mentions like 'transmission beyond words'; you cannot approach it through the word.

Good words, such as those by Nagarjuna, can help point the mind in the direction of nirvana and help break down its delusions. That was why he wrote them.

"Transmission beyond words" means that enlightened understanding is beyond conventional language and can only be discovered inwardly and directly by the individual, if Nature so chooses. It is a transmission directly from Nature, which can sometimes be triggered by the words or actions of a sage.

What does 'don't know' mean to you, Mr. Toast?

Hopefully, it means the sublime awareness of the formlessness of Nature, the understanding that it possesses no "thing" (or form) by which it can be known. I certainly hope it doesn't mean flat-out ignorance. That would be silly.

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Faust13 wrote:speciation hasn't been proven at all, because it is impossible. Each species has its own limited gene pool, and can only produce its own species.

That was proven how/when?

Any variance or differing traits are still part of the species, so a taller human is still a human, etc...

What definition of "species" are you using? You do know that "species" is a human category and that Nature tends not to give much of a crap about such things.

There's no dog with wings, or hairless monkeys that resemble hairless humans.

Humans are not hairless. We have as many hairs (follicles) on our body as chimps (actually more if I remember rightly), just finer. Our "nudity" is itself an obvious evolutionary artifact.

So natural selection can't progress anything because all these traits still propogate the same species.

What form of speciation are you arguing against? It's a multi-pronged notion Observed instances of speciation

Evolution would have to rely on nothing but random mutations that need to be so alien as to help propogate a different species, such as a cow with a giraffe's neck.

This kind of crude idea of mutation doesn't reflect theories of speciation as the above link shows. Btw, do you know that your view implies that at some point in history, every species that is known to have existed all did so at the same time? Must have been crowded. Or were new species teleported here by aliens?

Then, these mutations need to have successive mutations in order to bring about a larger change, such as a cow's neck becoming longer and longer. This is not only extremely rare, but physically impossible.

Um, is it extremely rare or impossible? Make up your mind. Also, do you know what genetic drift is?

These preliminary mutations aren't even advantageous for natural selection to work on them, nor would they necessarily always turn out properly in the new generation.

http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoMutations.html

If an ape is to become a human, it would have to somehow be born bipedal and start walking bipedally, and conceiving bipedal apes.

Rubbish.

If evolution has a starting point, then these preliminary changes should be seen today, as random mutations don't take millions of years to happen, because they aren't based on natural selection.

Natural selection doesn't happen at the genetic level? We better alert Dawkins immediately!

We should be able to see monkeys being born bipedal, or hairless,

Or with 9 legs that can each independently play a different Beethoven symphony.

which would then begin the process of natural selection if these traits are even advantageous, then they would be passed on. BUT, there's more problems.

Dang! Somehow I knew there would be.

These apes will still mate with apes, and it's not possible to make an entirely new species while you're conceiving with the same one all the time. A hairless monkey would still be a monkey, there would be no reason for it to speciate and not be able to reproduce with monkeys anymore.

Allopatric, peripatric, parapatric, and sympatric models of speciation along with ideas like genetic drift make this observation of yours seem kind of, um, simplistic.

Alas we see that no physical mutation has any beneficial effects for animals or humans, nor do they turn humans into another species. If humans can evolve, then we should see kids who are sometimes born with 3 arms, to be able to live and use their arms productively, but this is the opposite.

That's the cartoonish notion of evolution I mentioned before. Now you have me wondering if you are, in fact, the type of person who asks why apes still exist if we evolved from them.

Most physical mutations even reduce fertility and increase chances of miscarriage such as Down's Syndrome.

That's no doubt true, but also irrelevant.

David Quinn wrote:Good words, such as those by Nagarjuna, can help point the mind in the direction of nirvana and help break down its delusions. That was why he wrote them.

Mr. Quinn,

Has your understanding of Nagarjuna changed since the time of the Larkin Debate? If so, how has it been modified?

Dan,

Faust: Each species has its own limited gene pool, and can only produce its own species.

Dan: That was proven how/when?

Actually, the way species is defined, it does not have to be proven.

This is how biologists define species (as I learned it in 1977): A group of individuals that are so similar that they can mate among themselves and obtain fertile offspring.

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David,

For what it's worth, Dave has my own adulation at the moment.

You have your own adulation? While that isn't necessarily a news flash to some of us, I do wonder what you meant by this...

Dave Toast, Uni.

Oh. I'm bad with names, and keep forgetting there are two Daves.

It figures Dave Toast would have Dave Quinn's adulation, because what Toast is actually doing here involves acknowledging the limitations in empirical knowledge imposed by quantum mechanics, and yet still trying to establish knowledge beyond those limitations. In other words, he's using two different definitions of knowledge, but presenting them as one. Only one type of knowledge (the empirical, limited type) has a valid epistemic basis. The other stuff about conditionality and so forth is ontological and therefore no different from "mu" and "sticky buns." In reality, it isn't "knowledge" at all. By treating the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics and his ideas about conditionality as comparable, he is trying to have his cake and eat it too (as someone else put it).

Here:

Dan Rowden wrote:Ok, this thread has now lost its way so I'll close it.

yet this thread is by far off the topic of making peace with femininity, and is still open. I'm not sure that I'm able to follow Dicktator Dan's logic. May I ask what Dan's logic is here on this thread, should I ask under "Help Desk" or is there some other way that Master Castro - I mean Master Rowden wants me to handle my being unclear about what he wants from the posters on this forum?

Why don't you just ask him, instead of being passive-aggressive and calling him Castro?

I'm not sure that I'm able to follow Dicktator Dan's logic.

You shouldn't spell dictator like that, now. It can be argued that dictators are respectable people.

Some of them might be. Chavez is a quasi-dictator and he seems to be a man of good character. However, it remains true that absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely. There might be many dictators who start off essentially "respectable," but I'd wager that very few remain that way after a long period of unchecked power.

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Here:

Dan Rowden wrote:Ok, this thread has now lost its way so I'll close it.

yet this thread is by far off the topic of making peace with femininity, and is still open. I'm not sure that I'm able to follow Dicktator Dan's logic.

It wasn't a normal thread. It had a very specific, administrative and short term purpose unlike most threads which normally meander. That specific purpose was lost in the off-topic meandering. I figured people had nothing more to say on the topic it was created for.

May I ask what Dan's logic is here on this thread, should I ask under "Help Desk" or is there some other way that Master Castro - I mean Master Rowden wants me to handle my being unclear about what he wants from the posters on this forum?

If you're unclear after all your time here as to what: "Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment" means, I don't think any further explanation will help.

And to be perfectly frank, I'd just as soon not explain it further. I think it would be instructive and useful to posters to consider it for themselves. To that end, perhaps a thread discussing what is and is not relevant to wisdom (and the path to it) might be germane. Go for it if you want.

Dan Rowden wrote:This kind of crude idea of mutation doesn't reflect theories of speciation as the above link shows. Btw, do you know that your view implies that at some point in history, every species that is known to have existed all did so at the same time? Must have been crowded. Or were new species teleported here by aliens?

Something like 99% of all animals that have ever existed are now extinct is the current approximation.Must've been more than crowded,must've been chock-a-block.

Noahs Ark anyone.

Personally I think most of those species lived underground, which of course explains why their bones have been found in rock strata.

Those bones were just placed there to test our faith in God dude.

If that's the case, then Christians should get with the program and promote evolution to test their faith in God.

But in reality, they of little faith are afraid many in their ranks won't pass the test. Either that, or they are afraid the "mind-pollution" will prevent the kiddies from ever giving Christianity a chance in the first place - in which case they are admitting a lack of faith both in their own outreach abilities and God's willingness to draw souls to Christ.

Any way you slice it, they won't be moving any mountains, since their faith is not even that of a mustard seed.

Unidian wrote:If that's the case, then Christians should get with the program and promote evolution to test their faith in God.

Seconded.

But in reality, they of little faith are afraid many in their ranks won't pass the test. Either that, or they are afraid the "mind-pollution" will prevent the kiddies from ever giving Christianity a chance in the first place - in which case they are admitting a lack of faith both in their own outreach abilities and God's willingness to draw souls to Christ.

Darwin talked me into quitting Sunday School,and i thank him for that.The Christian's fear is real.

Ataraxia wrote:I remember that thread.David is steering Victor towards-and what I'm going to submit as my first QSR aphroism - the "argument from conditionality" via semantics.It's what always happens when this subject arises AFAICT.

He is trying to get Victor to say INdeterminency,if he does then a semantic argument can ensue.However later in thread somewhere Victor says it's not indeterminate,"I purposefully use the term non-determinent."

Thing is, I'm not talking about the context of the thread, nor who's asking the question.

What I'm talking about is the question 'Is this randomness not a property of the system itself but rather a function of our inability to predict the outcome?', being asked

You're right, Victor doesn't answer it there but I'm fairly confident if he was here now he would say dice randomness and qauntum randomness are differnt.The dice's outcome determinant,the QM outcome not.

Forget about the dice, it's just a metaphor.

But you're right in that he would probably say something along the lines that the measurement of the observable is arrived at non-deterministically, within a deterministic probablility distribution. And rightly so.

This would be in line with the 'popular' view at the moment of the Copenhagen interpretation and why it is criticized by "many philosophers" per the wiki quote,it points to non-determinency.

That's not exactly what it said though. It said not that Copenhagen points towards non-determinism but that Copenhagen is non-deterministic.

To avoid repeating myself, I'll state it differently. The non-determinate nature of observables within the system is an emergent property of the necessarily incomplete model of the system, not a property of the system itself.

Nat wrote:f that's the case, then Christians should get with the program and promote evolution to test their faith in God.

This guy seems to have heard the call.

Unidian wrote:Nat: what Toast is actually doing here involves acknowledging the limitations in empirical knowledge imposed by quantum mechanics, and yet still trying to establish knowledge beyond those limitations.

The only thing I’ve tried to establish is my view of the science that is often used to imply acausality. Nothing more than that.

I just don’t understand how or why everything has to be turned into some kind of forum wars / ‘prominent internet philosopher drama’ issue. I couldn’t give a flying fuck about any of the pugilists involved and it’s got fuck all to do with me. The fallacious nature of imputing that shit onto my words shouldn’t have to be pointed out.

In other words, he's using two different definitions of knowledge, but presenting them as one.

In fact, I’ve explicitly acknowledged they are not one in the same.

Only one type of knowledge (the empirical, limited type) has a valid epistemic basis. The other stuff about conditionality and so forth is ontological and therefore no different from "mu" and "sticky buns." In reality, it isn't "knowledge" at all.

And I suppose you have some empirical evidence for this? Or is what you’re saying here not really “knowledge” at all?

By treating the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics and his ideas about conditionality as comparable, he is trying to have his cake and eat it too (as someone else put it).

You’re not reading very carefully. Show me one instance of my ‘treating the indeterminacy of quantum mechanics and [my] ideas about conditionality as comparable’.

While you’re looking, you might note the numerous times that I explicitly state they are two different matters entirely.

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All those things you’ve imagined I’ve said, and all the things Bob imagined I had said, are purely a product of the spectacles your ‘prominent internet philosopher drama’ brings to the reading of my words.

Needless to say, egoistic delusions tend to hamper reason. It would seem they even compromise reading skills. Truly hatstand!

Dave Toast wrote: The non-determinate nature of observables within the system is an emergent property of the necessarily incomplete model of the system, not a property of the system itself.

Hmm ok.It's obvious to me I have to look into this further.

Dan wrote:

Or were new species teleported here by aliens?

Perhaps.