GENIUS FORUMS

I must be entering Australian samadhi or something... I just noticed: I have Australian-directed Moulin Rouge playing in the background. Baz rocks!

Trevor wrote: "Anyway, even were we to tap into a consciousness-field through the brain rather than create consciousness from the brain, it's still a physical process, and it would be open to scientific and philosophic scrutiny. I have no idea why you avoid the idea of physics so much. "

I don't avoid physics. I critique materialist preconceptions that exist in the scientific - and by extension - contemporary culture.

You don't 'tap into a field through the brain', rather the brain is the physical-visible blob of a yin-yang overall universe in which mind is the formless container of such blob. Something like that.

The process of deep methodology (yoga, meditation, perhaps 'thinking' the way some here use the term) is to sit and be so solidly with the essence of being a fish that the presence of ocean and fish together are seen together. As an animal realm fish, one lives in water all the time without realising it, thinking that one is a fish and that one's brain produces (no doubt fishy!) consciousness, just as we think our human brain produces human consciousness.

Rather our human brain ( to relax this brain argument issue) and consciousness is a function of the particular (karmic) way we approach the duality of seeeming self and seeming other. The karmic motivation grows the appropriate body, as it were. This is how cows, mosquitoes, humans and yes, even our infamous 'tulkus', are produced from space in this fantasmagoric carnival known as 'reality'.

PS. This is also where our infamous 'water' comes from as well!

I go a little bit further with water. ( could do fire or air but no matter).

If we adopt the conventional (materialistic) view, we can say that water weights x per litre, contains H20 molecular structures and so forth.

But as I pointed out earlier, water has qualities. Forget about certain poetic ones I added (though I don't think they are irrelevant on a more profound level), let's just stick with simple, literal ones like:
it is wet
it can freeze or flow or steam
it always flows downhill
there is always just as much water (as water, ice or vapour) on the planet at any given moment as at any other, i.e. it is incredibly constant and continuous, i.e. truly an 'elemental' (in the literal sense) part of phenomenal reality.

These qualities of water, i.e. that it is wet, changes form, flows downhill to seek its level, is elemental are truly quintessential aspects of the nature and properties of water, just as much as the molecular way of analysing its outer constituent parts.

In fact, these are the 'consciousness' aspects of water. Quality is awareness-aspect of phenomenal reality. And to look at phenomena without appreciating such qualitative properties is to essentially create a dead mechanistic world, which I have characterised as 'rubbing sticks together'.

This is both a very, very obvious, even crude point. And also rather subtle one.

tharpa wrote:

Cause and effect is the whole of reincarnation, not merely an aspect of it.

Can you please explain your position on this clearly and completely

I've already done so. What part of it did you think was missing?

But either way, it really doesn't matter, does it?

What matters is that you believe irrational things, such as that long-term memories are stored in the heart, even though it has been clearly proven not to be the case.

If your belief were true, then a person who had a heart transplant would lose all their long-term memories.

I personally have not met anyone who had a heart transplant and so am not sure what happens to their long-term memory.

The truth is, I don't think you are at all interested in knowing, since it might undermine your belief. Otherwise you would have already looked into it.

After a few weeks, he realised that he was thinking 'up there' and finally understood what we were talking about. 'Where did you think before?', I asked? 'Oh here of course', he said, pointing to his heart area. 'That's where everything thinks where I come from.'

He is speaking absolute rubbish.

Buddhism is one of the most intellectual of all philosophies - especially Tibetan Buddhism, with all of its thousands of categories and sub-categories and huge and complex heirarchies.

There's nothing wrong with the intellect. It's only people who are attached to their emotions who fear it.

First, you didn't answer my question which was - to paraphrase - if you can show me one iota of proof that the seat of consciousness is in any one part or location of the physical body more than any other part, then I will consider the brain as such a locus.

This has already been clearly demonstrated to you, but you don't want to know. Also, you've clearly never investigated it on your own accord, so you obviously have no interest in knowing more about it.

Or are they a seamless interconnection? Is there any part of the body where you can say: this is separate from mind?

All things are interconnected. The brain is not independent of the rest of the Universe. We've already been over this.

Kevin, are you having fun?

tharpa wrote:The karmic motivation grows the appropriate body, as it were.

Re-incarnation is literally “to become flesh again”. This is a living universe which has brought forth life and peopled this planet, and reality has become you and me and all of us. Re-incarnation is what the universe does; we don’t.

Do no harm,
clyde

"If your belief were true, then a person who had a heart transplant would lose all their long-term memories. "

Just as I seem to be too dense to get your points and when ask for elaboration or qualification get stolid replies like 'I already explained this' etc., so also you ignore my replies as if they were never made.

If you don't want to repeat and clarify whatever point it is you are/were making, fine. But we really don't need this constant nit-picking argument. Do we? I mean: where is it going. As far as I can tell, your main interest is in tearing the poster known as tharpa down. OK. He is ripped to shreds. Now what?

Clyde wrote: "Re-incarnation is literally “to become flesh again”. This is a living universe which has brought forth life and peopled this planet, and reality has become you and me and all of us. Re-incarnation is what the universe does; we don’t. "

Nice one! I would also add - because I am irrepressibly naughty no doubt - that somewhere in there we should have the statement: 'we are the universe' or 'we and the universe are not two'.

So it is true to say that the universe brings forth life etc. It is no less true to say that we bring the universe to life. We are the universe, in other words. Without inhabitants, no universe would exists.

The common view is that there was a rock spinning in space. Then water formed somehow, and accidental heat from the sun, then winds, then weather, then lightning or whatever and ZAP BANG BIM SHALA BAM!!!

LIFE

was formed and gradually crawled from the primordial sludge eventially sliding into some sort of marsupial form that hopped into hominoid and voila!: lightning-transmogrified sludge can cook an omelette, play the guitar and do the whole thing in high heels with lipstick. Extraordinary!

I think my propositions are a bit more elegant.

Not to mention realistic!!

But I still approve of those high heels.... ( the post-movie moulin rouge girls musical part is now playing!!)

unknown author wrote:If there is a cause for anything, it is everything.

That is a definition of mutually dependent occurrence. Whatever we are (or imagine we are) and the universe (the not-us) are an ongoing mutually dependent occurrence.

Do no harm,
clyde

tharpa,

I don't avoid physics. I critique materialist preconceptions that exist in the scientific - and by extension - contemporary culture.

Your views are part of contemporary culture. You seem more willing to critique the scientific community than the source of your views. I'd sooner criticize contemporary Buddhism than contemporary science, since contemporary science cannot be as easily pinned down to one specific methodology or paradigm. For instance, criticizing biology is an entirely different thing than criticizing political science, or criticizing computer science, or criticizing physics. Each makes use of different assumptions and methods, so it is very hard to call them all one thing (least of all a single -ism; it is just as easy to be a Christian scientist as a materialist).

Basically, you are not being specific enough. Contemporary culture is a big thing, as is contemporary science. It's very hard to criticize it all... and if you try, you forget that you are part of it.

You don't 'tap into a field through the brain', rather the brain is the physical-visible blob of a yin-yang overall universe in which mind is the formless container of such blob. Something like that.

*zonk*

In fact, these are the 'consciousness' aspects of water. Quality is awareness-aspect of phenomenal reality. And to look at phenomena without appreciating such qualitative properties is to essentially create a dead mechanistic world, which I have characterised as 'rubbing sticks together'.

Diogenes was asked, "What is the difference between life and death?

"No difference."

"Well then, why do you remain in this life?"

"Because there is no difference."

There is no reason to call materialism a view that the world is dead and mechanistic. It is nothing more than the view that emphasizes the importance of matter in the functioning of the universe. "Matter" does not mean "lifeless".

The common view is that there was a rock spinning in space. Then water formed somehow, and accidental heat from the sun, then winds, then weather, then lightning or whatever and ZAP BANG BIM SHALA BAM!!!

If you don't know the common view, don't make fun of it. It just makes you look ignorant.

Water forms far earlier than metals. A quick glance at the periodic table could assure you of that. The nuclear activity in a first generation star is easily vibrant enough to force eight protons together to form oxygen (and when cooled, this oxygen will bind with the already-present single-proton hydrogen to form water).

Also, "accidental" does not mean "unimportant" or "random". It simply means that it is neither a necessary or sufficient condition.

Trevor: good post - on the whole, i.e. apart from unnecessary ad hominems.

I see no reason why in a forum there should be any pressure for everyone to agree; rather its great value is in being able to see a topic viewed differently; there are many facets to truth and delusion.

So you have your view and I have mine. No big deal. And certainly no need to argue and/or try to convert someone else into your own view. I admit I was generalising, but in order to make points that I think are 'generally' applicable. To list in endless detail specific exceptions in various particular scientific fields, not to mention individuals therein, would not only be tedious, but essentially impossible without going on for several thousand pages any time one said anything about anything.

............................

Couple of links germane to this thread, though not in terms of being pro or con any particular argument.

On animals, a fun one (not religious but many anecdotes):
http://www.wie.org/j32/animal-souls.asp?page=1

On karma, in the beginners section of a buddhist forum:
Lion City

There are some good posts and links to mainly Hinayana School material in there which directly address some of the issues about karma raised by Kevin and others in this thread - although I suspect that earlier on in that forum ( which I stumbled onto only a few days ago) there are far more detailed and exhaustive discussions; this is a recent one with ongoing contributions.



Of particular note in the karma thread, I found #39 especially germane to this thread:

"There are these four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them. Which four?

"The Buddha-range of the Buddhas1 is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it.

"The jhana-range of a person in jhana...2

"The [precise working out of the] results of kamma...

"Conjecture about [the origin, etc., of] the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it.

"These are the four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them."

source: Access to Insight

!!

Trevor,

It should not give rise to the image of two realms: everything is physical, and metaphysics describes the transcendental features of everything. It is quite clear that there is only one thing here.

What do you mean by transcendent?

I relegate unsubstantiated claims about things that cannot be known to the supernatural ("we can't know everything, therefore ghosts exist!"). Magic refers to a very specific kind of thinking, where causality or non-contradiction or some other essential feature of reality is overlooked in favour of delusion. Magical thinking is the failure to understand metaphysics.

None of this has anything to do with whether or not there are apects to our realm that we haven't yet discovered in the provable way that you want. I think it is shortsighted for people to stick to the idea that they should believe only their senses, and anything not readily accessible to their senses (or our recent crude extensions of them) is silly or magical. It is exactly as if, 500 years ago, someone said, "You know, there are tiny creatures too small to see, and sometimes those creatures can get into our bodies and make us sick by living there." What a laughing stock! How unsubstantiated! Not one iota of evidence! And on and on.

It ought to be obvious by now that it is our senses which keep us in this exact spot within a much larger reality. We now know that everything which appears solid to us is made up of far smaller layers of matter/energy units. And we haven't gotten to the bottom. But you assume we have gotten to the bottom. It is an assumption that I won't bet a penny on.

I agree with that statement, although he could just as easily say "there is no such thing as the spiritual world: there is only the material world", or "there is only one world, and it doesn't matter what you call it."

Yes, in truth the words spiritual and material have no referent. Their only meaning is for the purpose of differentiating from the other, and it is a false differentiation. There is only one world, so it is what it is.

I prefer to call it spiritual to shake the materialists. And because that which appears to us as solid matter is caused by finer energies that we can't perceive (yet).

Iolaus wrote:

"It ought to be obvious by now that it is our senses which keep us in this exact spot within a much larger reality.
.....
Yes, in truth the words spiritual and material have no referent. Their only meaning is for the purpose of differentiating from the other, and it is a false differentiation. There is only one world, so it is what it is. "

I extract these two thoughts not to distort or misrepresent your full post, but because these two thoughts elicited the following relating contemplation/response:

First, I very much feel that our individuated existence is simply a mechanism (to use a dirty word) whereby the overall universal continuum which is one essentially of awareness in some sense, can create particular localities of the same, aka space and time, i.e. particular beings in particular locations. Perhaps we could regard the whole thing as some sort of primordial playfulness.

In terms of their being one overall reality/continuum etc. so that differentiation between so-called material and so-called spiritual is artificial, I have no problem. And yet at the same time was sparked an objection and this goes back to what I was discussing in terms of a yin-yang dynamic. Although there is only 'one', so to speak, at the same time this 'one' comprises two, in that there is both form and formless together, and one without the other is impossible.

Going back to the first thought - hence the connection - in order for there to be particular location, one has to have a larger context, i.e. totality, for such particularity to be at all. Just as any individual fish depends upon the vaster ocean in which to exist. So both particularity and universality are two sides of the same coin, i.e the yin-yang notion again.

So on the one hand they are all the same, i.e. 'one', and on the other they are also different, i.e. many. So even on the simple, literal logical level we can see that something can be both true and false at the same time, that locality and universality, which are by definition opposites, coexist, are true, and are also false.

Similarly, we could say that birth (or rebirth or reincarnation - to use an even dirtier word!) both happens and does not happen at the same time. Who can deny birth who holds their newborn in their arms? And yet who can deny that the universe in which they are born into remains essentially unchanged from one moment to the next, whether or not such individuated birth has occurred?

BOH,

What do you mean by transcendent?

I meant it in the Kantian sense, as "not subject to experience."

The transcendental features of reality are those features of reality that are omnipresent, but which cannot be subjected to the same scrutiny as something grounded solely in experience. For example, causality, non-contradiction, the difference between finite and infinite, etc.

None of this has anything to do with whether or not there are apects to our realm that we haven't yet discovered in the provable way that you want.

I think you are misinterpreting my intentions. I do have a scientific bias, but I'm trying to stick to metaphysics & epistemology.

For instance, rather than immediately disproving his claim that water is the seat of consciousness (which I do think is ridiculous, but I know I have no convincing proof that it isn't for someone who believes otherwise), I am looking at the structure of proof. If his belief is magical, then it is automatically invalid.

I do not use "magical" in the sense that ignorant people tend to automatically use the word, as a gesture of denigration or a symbol of worship. I use it to refer to specific kinds of things and events that I know, based on my metaphysical foundations, to be impossible.

Belief in an invisible pink unicorn is magical, for instance, because "invisibility" and "pinkness" are mutually exclusive characteristics.

Belief in the existence of a regular old invisible unicorn, however, is not magical. It is simply unproveable.

I prefer to call it spiritual to shake the materialists. And because that which appears to us as solid matter is caused by finer energies that we can't perceive (yet).

I am fine so long as someone is able to see the world through the lens of monism. No other view of reality can be sustained. The alternative to materialism is not spiritualism, since both are identical positions that simply prefer different vocabularies and methods -- the real alternative is the radical truth-denying subjectivism that does not believe that any ultimate reality exists. Basically, anyone who is willing to believe that there is more than one truth, and that it can be accessed through any number of quasi-spiritual (bullshit) ways.

"For instance, rather than immediately disproving his claim that water is the seat of consciousness.."

I did not claim this. Rather I used water in the same way as you used the brain. You said that if you did X and Y to the brain, personality was effected Z-ly, thus proving it was the main seat of consciousness.

I retorted that if you removed water not only from the brain but any other major organ or nexus in the body, in a similar fashion personality would be direly affected, and therefore, using your argument, it could be maintained that water is the seat of consciousness.

I believe that saying that water is the seat of consciousness is as ludicrous as maintaining that the brain - or anything physical for that matter - is the seat of consiousness.

That was the point. Sorry it wasn't clear.

I then meandered further into quantum-type musings which contemplate that water (or anything physical) is inseparable from consciousness. But that is another theme in the overall fugue.

Hi Trevor,

By the way, did you used to have a different screen name?

I'm not really familiar with that use of the word transcendent. I'll have to think about it. But that isn't what people usually mean by the word metaphysical. Is it? I was using it interchangeably with supernatural. People who believe in the supernatural are in a false duality and people who disdain the supernatural are in a narrow materialistic interpretation. I don't believe in the supernatural but I do believer our reality includes subtleties that you probably do not accept.

You say you have a scientific bias, but it isn't about science, it's about a common attitude among scientists at this time. I love science and strive to understand it, largely because science and God are all but synonymous. One needn't be a materialist. I have a scientific bias in that I expect all true discoveries of science to reinforce my understanding of this spiritual world. And I expect science to eventually begin to find the subtle energies.

Now, when I say materialist, I mean someone who believes that matter as we perceive it with our senes is all there is, that our universe and all its systems and life forms arose without purpose or mind, and that mind is confined to brain and evolved after brain, and that life is confined to chemistry of the body.

I am fine so long as someone is able to see the world through the lens of monism. No other view of reality can be sustained.

Well I certainly agree with that.

There is not more than one truth, but I envision truth to be something like a pyramid or cone. There can be partial understandings, and those understandings get discarded and traded in when newer understandings improve the picture. These, in turn, must go. And at the wider levels, the amount of perceived truth might be adequately described in different ways.

And actually I do think people gain it in various ways.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Tharpa,

As regards individuality, I see it as like your yin-yang of reality. I think that the one universal being is also localized into many. They are two sides of a coin.

It might be playfulness, but it is probably also some kind of evolution (but not Darwin's!). I think that, as individuals, we are in a process of becoming real. A real what, you may ask. An amalgamation of opposites, a new being that didn't exist at the start but had just purity and potential, a being tried in the fire.

I see no reason for reincarnation to not be true. By the way, the reason why people's personality is destroyed by brain damage is not because the brain is the sole cause of mentailty, but because we are working inside of these bodies, and that is what the brain does. If you bash your TV set with a bat, and it stops working very well, that doesn't mean that the TV set was the cause of the programs, or that the airwaves coming into your TV set can't switch to another TV set that works. But if you want to watch TV, you gotta have a TV set.

tharpa wrote:I believe that saying that water is the seat of consciousness is as ludicrous as maintaining that the brain - or anything physical for that matter - is the seat of consiousness.

You are using fallacious reasoning.

Take the seat I am sitting on for example. Now if I removed everything that was causing it to be a seat, it would no longer be a seat. However, a seat it is and a seat it remains.

Likewise with the brain being the seat of consciousness. If you took away everything that caused the brain to be seat of consciousness, it would no longer be so. Yet the seat of consciousness it is.

Iolaus wrote:If you bash your TV set with a bat, and it stops working very well, that doesn't mean that the TV set was the cause of the programs,

From what we know about the brain it is more like a computer than a TV set. That is, the brain is much more complex than a current TV set, and can create its own TV programs if circumstances are right. It can also record and playback TV programs, and reason about which programs to watch, or create, etc.

But that doesn't mean the brain is totally independent. It is just as dependent as is a computer.

Kevin wrote:

"You are using fallacious reasoning.

Take the seat I am sitting on for example. Now if I removed everything that was causing it to be a seat, it would no longer be a seat. However, a seat it is and a seat it remains.

Likewise with the brain being the seat of consciousness. If you took away everything that caused the brain to be seat of consciousness, it would no longer be so. Yet the seat of consciousness it is. "

This would be perfectly accurate if you change the first two words, thusly:

"I am using fallacious reasoning.

Take the seat I am sitting on for example. Now if I removed everything that was causing it to be a seat, it would no longer be a seat. However, a seat it is and a seat it remains.

Likewise with the brain being the seat of consciousness. If you took away everything that caused the brain to be seat of consciousness, it would no longer be so. Yet the seat of consciousness it is. "

I find the last paragraph absolutely stunning in terms of its logical vacuity, bordering - if not exemplifying - inanity. Read it again carefully, please. Better yet, first enjoy the following prescription:

Enjoy an evening of roast rack of lamb, potatoes - for earthiness- vegatable - for vitality - and a strong Barolo - for nourishing joy. And excellent female companionship of course!

Then come back and try it again!!

Iolaus: thank you for the TV analogy. I meant to bring it in myself since I think it is the best one going. Like any analogy it is not complete, but still it works very well. The fact that when you break the set you can no longer receive signals does not mean that the set is the source of the signals, i.e. the movie.

I happen to go along more with the Holographic Universe book's type of proposal, that along with being a receiver along the lines of the radio-TV analogy, it is also a transmitter, i.e. we are both product and producer at the same time, but the physical body is the medium through which localised consciousness can be both received through the medium of the senses (hence the importance of the brain) whilst also such being the medium through which such localised reality is created. This does not mean that each individual creates the entire universe, but it means that the universe is creating individuals whilst at the same time the many individuals create the universe.

But this also is fanciful/playful rather than succint, quantifiable 'scientific' language. The endless multifarious levels of causes and conditions are inter-penetrating both spatially and temporally, and therefore to attempt to define them into one definition is essentially futile, and worse, to believe that one can come with a dogma that encapsulates both the universal and particular is probably a form bordering on insanity or psychosis.

Better to wonder at the beauty of the flower in the interconnected sphere of perception available/created by those of us in this marvellous human realm than to attempt to explain it with microscopes or telescopes, either physically or linguistically. Indeed, the actual expression of the flower says it all - and it truly is speaking by its very nature. We live in a universe engaged in continuous conversation with itself, like a family around a dinner table - or a forum for that matter. Whether it is a human, animal or other realm type conversation depends upon the contributions/motivations/styles/panache/wisdom etc. of the participants.

(What realm, I wonder, is this conversation?)

'Tis a marvellous, marvellous affair. Ordinary magic one might say.

Trevor wrote:

"Your views are part of contemporary culture. You seem more willing to critique the scientific community than the source of your views. I'd sooner criticize contemporary Buddhism than contemporary science, since contemporary science cannot be as easily pinned down to one specific methodology or paradigm. For instance, criticizing biology is an entirely different thing than criticizing political science, or criticizing computer science, or criticizing physics. Each makes use of different assumptions and methods, so it is very hard to call them all one thing (least of all a single -ism; it is just as easy to be a Christian scientist as a materialist)."

Good points about science and my (possible) over-generalisations. If you also think those points are good - and I assume you do since you made them -, then please apply the same prescription to your criticism of contemporary Buddhism, as if it were one thing. It is not. And never has been. By original design and continuous implementation. Not only do Theravadin Buddhists in Thailand regard all Tibetan Buddhists as perverters of the tradition, for example, but even within the same schools not all agree on everything and also most of them exist in essentially autonomous realms, having little or nothing to do with each other. Also each student has his/her own relationship with a teacher and with fellow students and so on ad infinitum. To assume that all contemporary buddhists are full of shit simply because you can attach the one label - 'buddhist' - to them, is fallacious and unreasonable, for exactly the reasons you described in terms of my generalisations about the scientific worldviews prevalent today.

Except that I will defend my point again: the scientistic worldview is one of far less precise lineage and history, far less philosophically articulated or debated (mainly over only the past few centuries if at all), whereas buddhist lineages spend an inordinate amount of time and effort in precisely defining, debating about, and transmitting their views and practices from top to bottom and inside and out, and have done so for well over two millenia. So they have far more experience in critical analysis, not to mention multiple independent schools of thought than our contemporary scientific, philosophical or academic lineages, all of whom would regard it as somewhat unfair to be lumped together as one essentially identical 'view' as I did and you objected to.

Also: could you please define what you mean by monism, since you said you rejected any view at all that was not monist?

BoH,

By the way, did you used to have a different screen name?

Yeah. I'd been around here for a few years under the alias "mookestink", and I also remember you from TPG. I just switched to my real name within the last couple months, and it's made me quite a bit more polite.

I'm not really familiar with that use of the word transcendent. I'll have to think about it...

That was actually the first time I've used it in the Kantian sense, and I'm rather proud of myself for solving that rather puzzling usage of it. It came to me as I was writing that sentence, in fact. That was literally the first time I ever understood what Kant meant by his use of it, and I even double-checked the dictionary to make sure I had indeed got it right before submitting. It is a word that follows from the term "a priori", but I'd be careful before using them interchangeably.

But that isn't what people usually mean by the word metaphysical. Is it? I was using it interchangeably with supernatural.

If you go into the metaphysical section of the bookstore, you will find books on psychics, tarot, shamanism, and witchcraft. That is not the proper philosophic use of the term. I follow the fashion of the day (post-Kant), and use it almost interchangeably with "ontology". There are a few subtle differences between an ontological description of the world and a metaphysic, but for most purposes they can be assumed to be the same thing.

People who believe in the supernatural are in a false duality and people who disdain the supernatural are in a narrow materialistic interpretation. I don't believe in the supernatural but I do believer our reality includes subtleties that you probably do not accept.

If I remember correctly, I think it was you who once preached that the devil is in the details. And you would be right: there are a lot of subtleties that I do not understand, nor would I be able to easily accept them were they presented to me. I am very poor when it comes to the nitty-gritty of anything other than the metaphysical topics (ontology, epistemology, logic, etc.). I'm terrible at ethics, and I make an impatient scientist.

However, the supernatural seems a contradiction. There is only Nature. Once the so-called supernatural is understood, then it is also nature. There cannot be a supernatural explanation of anything in the natural world, only useful or poor ones.

I love science and strive to understand it, largely because science and God are all but synonymous. One needn't be a materialist. I have a scientific bias in that I expect all true discoveries of science to reinforce my understanding of this spiritual world. And I expect science to eventually begin to find the subtle energies.

Agreed.

Now, when I say materialist, I mean someone who believes that matter as we perceive it with our senes is all there is, that our universe and all its systems and life forms arose without purpose or mind, and that mind is confined to brain and evolved after brain, and that life is confined to chemistry of the body.

That is a lot of beliefs to confine to a single -ism.

Someone who believes that perception is all there is is a phenomenalist. Only the most radical of materialists believe that matter is all that there is, and nothing else. A non-teleological determinist would believe that everything arose without purpose. And only some kind of strict anti-mentalist would confine mind to brain and body chemistry, and not allow it to arise elsewhere.

These beliefs do not have to coexist in the same person, which makes attacking it all at once damn near impossible. I might suggest that your biggest gripe is not with materialists per se, but with phenomenalists and those who believe in non-teleological (purposeless) universes.

There is not more than one truth, but I envision truth to be something like a pyramid or cone. There can be partial understandings, and those understandings get discarded and traded in when newer understandings improve the picture. These, in turn, must go. And at the wider levels, the amount of perceived truth might be adequately described in different ways.

Well, I can agree with a hierarchy/pyramidical view of truth. For instance, I may have a relatively complete ontology, but that does not give me immediate access to every single little detail. I can say "all events have a cause", and be certain of this without knowing what any particular cause is.

tharpa, point taken. It's awfully late so I'll just respond to this for now:

Also: could you please define what you mean by monism, since you said you rejected any view at all that was not monist?

Monism is the belief that everything is ultimately boils down to one universal substance. Basically, it's the belief in what has been variously called Reality, or Tao, or Existence, or Being, or the Absolute, or the Infinite, or certain definitions of God. It is a requirement for believing in truth, since if there is not a single Reality, then nothing can be shown to be universally applicable to it.

I've never been able to think of a coherent and believable defense of an alternative, although I do understand that philosophers periodically try to create one. Pre-Buddhist Chinese thought, Cartesian substance dualism (mind/body), and virtually all post-modern beliefs all seem to aim at escaping monism.

tharpa wrote:Enjoy an evening of roast rack of lamb, potatoes - for earthiness- vegatable - for vitality - and a strong Barolo - for nourishing joy. And excellent female companionship of course!

So you're planning on rebirth as an animal again. See you in a few hundred lifetimes.

Trevor, thank you for that clear response.

Are you familiar with the buddhist 'Two Truths'? Sounds like your monist defintion resembles one of them, usually known in english as 'absolute truth'.

But then there is relative truth which simply put admits multiplicity/differences/particularities into the equation. Although not at all the same as yin-yang theory, structurally it ends up being somewhat similar. And as such I suspect it is not quite monist.

Another thought: any notion of monism might, if applied unskillfully, exclude that which is not monist, in which case the monist position contains two again.

(For example, is the typical 'Western' monotheistic notion monist? Or is there a typical notion and perhaps, like with science etc., there are in fact many different versions of the notion, some of which are mutually incompatible?)

This gets back to Goedel's theorem which states, I believe, that essentially no 'truth' exists without parameters defining the language in which that truth (formula, theorem etc.) is expressed. So again a two-fold structure is posited rather than one-fold, which seems to be the monist position.

Absolute truth is indeed monist. But it does not exist without also relative. Which is what I was saying in terms of the yin-yang interdependency of local and universal. There is no universal without it encompassing multifarious locals, and vice versa.

No? Or how could you put the whole thing together monistically without upsetting Goedel?

"So you're planning on rebirth as an animal again. See you in a few hundred lifetimes."

Now, now, if you keep indulging in such cat-fighting type repartee, not only are you risking remaining in animalian rigidity, but also you will be violating the non-feminine type of communication espoused by the Noble Quinn!!!

Waddya got against a good meal and good company anyway?

Speaking of the animal, here's a quote by someone who translated the Tib book of the Dead into English in the 1970's:

""Anything unpredictable fundamentally threatens the basic pattern. So that apparently sane and solid situation without a sense of humour is the animal realm."

One of the key differences between animals and humans is the sense of humour quotient. Animals are far more intelligent, even 'soulfull' than many give them credit for, and far less intelligent and soulful than doting pet-owners attribute to them, but generally speaking it is true to say that few possess any great sense of humour, although there are sparks. Amy the gorilla, about whom a film was made, once she learned to speak with the computer thingy on her wrist that vocalised movements of her fingers, definitely cracked a few jokes! Still, Amy notwithstanding - clearly a physical animal with human realm aspects, the definition above is a rather good one, I think.

tharpa wrote:This gets back to Goedel's theorem which states, I believe, that essentially no 'truth' exists without parameters defining the language in which that truth (formula, theorem etc.) is expressed.

Firstly, truth has nothing to do with language. Only the expression of truth is dependent on language. Secondly, all languages necessarily have parameters defining them, otherwise they would be meaningless. And languages do have meaning, otherwise nobody would understand any of the words on this page.

Take the seat I am sitting on for example. Now if I removed everything that was causing it to be a seat, it would no longer be a seat. However, a seat it is and a seat it remains.

Likewise with the brain being the seat of consciousness. If you took away everything that caused the brain to be seat of consciousness, it would no longer be so. Yet the seat of consciousness it is. "

This would be perfectly accurate if you change the first two words, thusly:

"I am using fallacious reasoning.

You've missed the point of the argument.

Water is one of things that causes the seat I am sitting on. (eg, the workers who made the seat depend on water). But that doesn't change the fact that a seat is still a seat.

Likewise water is one of the things that causes the brain to be the seat of consciousness. And similarly, the fact that water is one of its causes doesn't take anything away from it.