GENIUS FORUMS

In Commentary Thread: Causation and Spirituality (Sam vs David) Kevin wrote the following:

The ego is a deluded conception of the self which views the self as inherently existent.

Kevin describes what he considers to be a delusion that is the result of the belief that the self exists independently of the non-self. A view which he calls "inherent existence." This error as Kevin sees it, stems from contradicting one of his broader principles which states that a thing is always dependent upon that which it is not for its existence. In other words a "thing" necessarily relies upon causes/contrasts/differentiation with "non-thing" for its existence. This post will deal with the specific case of the self.

Is it true that the average person believes that their self exists independently of the non-self? Using Kevin's terminology, does the average person believe that their self "inherently exists"? Kevin and others apparently believe this to be the case.

I would argue the average person believes that their self exists because of, and is dependent upon, a multitude of things external to that self. Their mother and father, the food they ingest daily, the planet whose surface they live upon, the sun which that planet orbits, and even evolution of prior species and the big bang or other similarly distant past events. So from that perspective I don't believe that the average person is in fact under the impression that their self "inherently exists."

Even though I quoted Kevin, replies to this post are not just limited to him, I'd like to hear responses from anyone, especially David and Dan.

Jason;

What is the value of arguing whether "the average person believes that their self exists independently of the non-self"? And what is the value of knowing what the so-called average person believes?

clyde

If a person is under the illusion that life and death are real, then he is under the illusion that his self is real.

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clyde wrote:Jason;

What is the value of arguing whether "the average person believes that their self exists independently of the non-self"?

And what is the value of knowing what the so-called average person believes?

For me, in this thread, these arguments' and questions' main value lies in the fact that they may undermine the claims and philosophy of Kevin, Dan and David(amongst others.)

David Quinn wrote:If a person is under the illusion that life and death are real, then he is under the illusion that his self is real.

Life and death are almost universally seen to be outcomes of a not inherently/independently existing self. Cut off food or oxygen and the self dies. Remove the mother or the big bang and the self is not born. These very conventional views of life and death actually support the idea of a non-inherent self rather than contradict it.

Jesus, Jason, play 2nd Life or something. Your boredom is putrid....

Address the arguments Dan.

What arguments?

Dan Rowden wrote:What arguments?

That most people don't actually believe in an inherently existing self to begin with, which contradicts with your view on the matter as far as I can tell.

Jason wrote:

David Quinn wrote:If a person is under the illusion that life and death are real, then he is under the illusion that his self is real.

Life and death are almost universally seen to be outcomes of a not inherently/independently existing self. Cut off food or oxygen and the self dies. Remove the mother or the big bang and the self is not born. These very conventional views of life and death actually support the idea of a non-inherent self rather than contradict it.

There has never been a self to begin with, so any talk of it arising or disappearing is meaningless.

When a person stops twirling a flaming torch around in circles, does the ring of light produced by the twirling really disappear? Ultimately no, because the ring of light never really existed in the first place. It was an illusion. All there was, in reality, was a point of light traveling in a circle over time.

The average person is not only attached to the illusion (of self), but believes what is expressed within the illusion to be fundamentally real. That is why he fears death and becomes upset when things don't seem to be going well for the illusion. He may not be conscious enough to understand what is happening here or be able to articulate his belief in the illusion, but nevertheless, his whole mentality is structured around it.

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David Quinn wrote:

Jason wrote:Life and death are almost universally seen to be outcomes of a not inherently/independently existing self. Cut off food or oxygen and the self dies. Remove the mother or the big bang and the self is not born. These very conventional views of life and death actually support the idea of a non-inherent self rather than contradict it.

There has never been a self to begin with, so any talk of it arising or disappearing is meaningless.

When a person stops twirling a flaming torch around in circles, does the ring of light produced by the twirling really disappear? Ultimately no, because the ring of light never really existed in the first place. It was an illusion.

David I've seen you use this trick many many times before. Whether it's intentional or not I don't know. You do a little switch-a-roo whereby you, and the argument, go from initially describing the self as "non-inherent" to then trying to substitute in the idea that the self is "non-existent" instead. The obvious problem being that non-inherency and non-existence are not equivalents.

That "X" exists, and that it does so by contrast with and dependence with "non-X" has always been one of your most basic principles. You call this non-inherent existence, and it applies to the self as much as any other thing. However there is an massive difference between the idea that X depends upon non-X for its existence, and the idea that X doesn't exist at all. You are confusing these two ideas, and from my perspective it's not proving anything but a lack of clarity and consistency on your part.

Jason wrote: Is it true that the average person believes that their self exists independently of the non-self? Using Kevin's terminology, does the average person believe that their self "inherently exists"? Kevin and others apparently believe this to be the case.

Well many do, who believe in the soul. The others do not believe in an inherently existing self but a central point of the body/mind. It is the second one which is more problematic.

I think you have raised a valid objection here, the second type is not invalidated by the kind of arguments that QRS present.

People try desperately to believe in an inherently existing self. Death is a bit of a spanner in the works, but people try to overcome that by believing in life after death — heaven and hell, reincarnation, etc.

Proof that people believe in an inherently existing self is that they feel proud when they have achieved something — as if they did it themselves — and they feel upset when someone insults them, or depressed and lonely when they are ignored, because they have drawn an inpenetrable barrier between themselves and others, and they feel separate. There are a million other examples, such as how bad people are personally blamed for their faults, even though they had nothing whatsoever to do with their becoming bad.

It is this inherently existing self that doesn't really exist, even though people believe it does, and this gives rise to all their woes.

Kevin Solway wrote:People try desperately to believe in an inherently existing self. Death is a bit of a spanner in the works, but people try to overcome that by believing in life after death — heaven and hell, reincarnation, etc.

The thrust of what you're saying here is incoherent. The belief in the continuation of the self after death doesn't contradict the idea that the self is non-inherent and dependent on external causes for its existence. All that the life after death argument does is posit some different external causes(such as heaven and a soul) that the the self becomes dependent upon for its continued existence. It is actually another example of belief in the non-inherent and non-independent nature of the self that the average person holds.

Proof that people believe in an inherently existing self is that they feel proud when they have achieved something — as if they did it themselves — and they feel upset when someone insults them, or depressed and lonely when they are ignored, because they have drawn an inpenetrable barrier between themselves and others, and they feel separate.

I don't think that's true at all. Such emotions have fundamentally nothing to do with a feeling of separation. It's much more accurate to say that people feel emotion because of connection and dependence with the external world rather than separation and independence from it. No one would ever be emotional if they did not feel and believe in a connection with the things that are the causes and objects of their emotion. The average person would certainly agree that their emotions are dependent upon and connected to external forces. Who is going to disagree that their sport team winning the competition isn't a cause of their happiness? Just more evidence that the average person believes that their self lacks inherent/independent existence.

Jason wrote:The belief in the continuation of the self after death doesn't contradict the idea that the self is non-inherent and dependent on external causes for its existence.

The "I", the true self, is a logical construct, like the number "1". This "I" disappears upon the death of the brain which gives it birth.

People don't like to believe this, so they desperately try to manufacture ways in which it can survive death.

Proof that people believe in an inherently existing self is that they feel proud when they have achieved something — as if they did it themselves — and they feel upset when someone insults them, or depressed and lonely when they are ignored, because they have drawn an inpenetrable barrier between themselves and others, and they feel separate.

I don't think that's true at all.

"Inpenetrable barrier" was too strong a term — but people want it to be inpenetrable, just like people want to believe that the borders of their country cannot be violated, and that their country is their own and not somebody elses . . . with the exception of women, who don't mind having their "country" invaded and occupied — because their ego is poorly formed.

But no matter how strong this delusion of self is, no matter how fortified, it will always be leaky, because reality finds a way through.

Such emotions have fundamentally nothing to do with a feeling of separation. It's much more accurate to say that people feel emotion because of connection and dependence with the external world rather than separation and independence from it.

You are perfectly right about the connection, but the connection is between isolated and lonely selves. And the connections are fraught with misery, like the connection between a drug addict and their drug.

Inherent doesn't mean independent, it means in and of itself. A belief in one's existence in relation to other things is not mutually exclusive with a belief in one's inherent existence. In fact the question is begged, how could one exist in relation to things if one didn't believe in the inherent self?

Kevin wrote:

Proof that people believe in an inherently existing self is that they feel proud when they have achieved something — as if they did it themselves — and they feel upset when someone insults them, or depressed and lonely when they are ignored, because they have drawn an inpenetrable barrier between themselves and others, and they feel separate. There are a million other examples, such as how bad people are personally blamed for their faults, even though they had nothing whatsoever to do with their becoming bad.

I don't think any of this constitutes proof. Most people cannot even think in terms of self. The manifestations you list here are most likely automatic emotional reactions. One might just as accurately say that a dog believes in an inherently existing self when he feels jealousy seeing another dog with a bone.

The "I", the true self, is a logical construct, like the number "1". This "I" disappears upon the death of the brain which gives it birth.

How do we know these things for fact?

Carl G wrote:Kevin wrote:

Proof that people believe in an inherently existing self is that they feel proud when they have achieved something — as if they did it themselves — and they feel upset when someone insults them, or depressed and lonely when they are ignored, because they have drawn an inpenetrable barrier between themselves and others, and they feel separate. There are a million other examples, such as how bad people are personally blamed for their faults, even though they had nothing whatsoever to do with their becoming bad.

I don't think any of this constitutes proof. Most people cannot even think in terms of self. The manifestations you list here are most likely automatic emotional reactions. One might just as accurately say that a dog believes in an inherently existing self when he feels jealousy seeing another dog with a bone.

Yes, you are quite right. These things I am saying are only true to the degree that a person has an ego — and an ego requires a fair degree of consciousness.

Most people live in a highly unconscious state and consequently have a diminished ego, and so their actions are just like animals, and can't really be called egotistical, or "believing in an inherently existent self."

The "I", the true self, is a logical construct, like the number "1". This "I" disappears upon the death of the brain which gives it birth.

How do we know these things for fact?

We don't know for sure that this logical construct is somehow continued to be made after the death of our brain, but we have no evidence that it does.

When we fall into unconscious sleep the "I" is simply not created any more, but the elements for its reconstruction are stored somewhere in memory and can be rebooted. Physical death seems to be like falling into unconscious sleep but without the memory to reconstruct the "I".

In another sense we can think of all people as possessing the very same "I" — since it is a logical construct, like the number "1", and everybody has the same number "1".

Jason wrote:

David Quinn wrote:

Jason wrote:Life and death are almost universally seen to be outcomes of a not inherently/independently existing self. Cut off food or oxygen and the self dies. Remove the mother or the big bang and the self is not born. These very conventional views of life and death actually support the idea of a non-inherent self rather than contradict it.

There has never been a self to begin with, so any talk of it arising or disappearing is meaningless.

When a person stops twirling a flaming torch around in circles, does the ring of light produced by the twirling really disappear? Ultimately no, because the ring of light never really existed in the first place. It was an illusion.

David I've seen you use this trick many many times before. Whether it's intentional or not I don't know. You do a little switch-a-roo whereby you, and the argument, go from initially describing the self as "non-inherent" to then trying to substitute in the idea that the self is "non-existent" instead. The obvious problem being that non-inherency and non-existence are not equivalents.

That "X" exists, and that it does so by contrast with and dependence with "non-X" has always been one of your most basic principles. You call this non-inherent existence, and it applies to the self as much as any other thing. However there is an massive difference between the idea that X depends upon non-X for its existence, and the idea that X doesn't exist at all. You are confusing these two ideas, and from my perspective it's not proving anything but a lack of clarity and consistency on your part.

On the contrary, my response was very pertinent.

A person doesn't really understand the self's non-inherent existence without understanding the manner in which it is an illusion - the same manner in which the ring of light is an illusion. It doesn't exist in the sense that as soon as you go looking for it, it isn't there. Its existence is merely apparent and sustained only by the adoption of a particular perspective. It doesn't exist in any shape or form outside of that perspective.

That is what I mean by the self not existing. It doesn't exist in any absolute sense.

The average person has no knowledge of such things. Even though he might be aware that he has been created by various factors, and could easily cease to exist in a blink of an eye, he still conceives of himself as a static chunk that is fundamentally real. That is, he believes that he inherently exists, even though he might know that his existence is causally-created and impermanent.

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Dave Toast wrote:

Inherent doesn't mean independent, it means in and of itself. A belief in one's existence in relation to other things is not mutually exclusive with a belief in one's inherent existence. In fact the question is begged, how could one exist in relation to things if one didn't believe in the inherent self?

The 'self' is always changing - so there is no static self.

Belief in an inherently existing self is maintained by ignoring the innumerable causes that bring about the self every moment. In this way the self is totally dependent, and therefore non-inherently existing.

Don't get me wrong Sue, I was illustrating the fallacy of the suggestion that belief in an inherent self is mutually exclusive to the realisation that said self is subject to and in relation to certain particular causes. To be more clear, the belief in an inherent self is not undermined in the slightest by the realisation of any number of particular causes (in fact it's reinforced by that relationship), rather it is undermined by the realisation of the nature of causlity itself.

Jason wrote: Is it true that the average person believes that their self exists independently of the non-self? Using Kevin's terminology, does the average person believe that their self "inherently exists"? Kevin and others apparently believe this to be the case.

If one accepts that the vast majority of people are philosophical realists, and believe that matter, as a object of perception, has a real existence, then one must accept that the vast majority of people believe in a self-inhering self – whether or not they are aware of it. For when the Buddha said that all things are devoid of ‘self-inhering self’, he meant that nothing is possessed of its own intrinsic causes, but are dependent upon extrinsic causes for their existence. This is not to deny the existence of that which partakes of a self-inhering self (absolute existence), for reason dictates that it must be, but merely that there is no ‘thing’ that does so; for all things arise as a result of the coming together of the appropriate causes, and have no existence apart from those causes. In other words, all things partake of only a relative existence; and so are not real, but merely apparent.

Dave Toast wrote:

Don't get me wrong Sue, I was illustrating the fallacy of the suggestion that belief in an inherent self is mutually exclusive to the realisation that said self is subject to and in relation to certain particular causes. To be more clear, the belief in an inherent self is not undermined in the slightest by the realisation of any number of particular causes (in fact it's reinforced by that relationship), rather it is undermined by the realisation of the nature of causlity itself.

Yes, I see your point. Accepting causality as integral to one’s existence works well with the belief in an inherent existing self, because, as you say, those two concepts work off of one another.

So Jason is correct that:

the average person believes that their self exists because of, and is dependent upon, a multitude of things external to that self. Their mother and father, the food they ingest daily, the planet whose surface they live upon, the sun which that planet orbits, and even evolution of prior species and the big bang or other similarly distant past events.

And any four year old could have told him he was correct, because it is a four year old's mentality that he is describing.

Just like a four year old, people believe that their life had a beginning (mother, solar system, big bang) and that their life will one day end - though many believe their lives will go on in heaven, or hell, or reincarnated in another form, or that their consciousness will continue on eternally.

Anyone with a mental age older than four would know that there are no such thing as a beginning, or an ending - for if there were, no thing could exist. Which is what I believe you were referring to, Dave, when you wrote, “it [an inherent self] is undermined by the realisation of the nature of causality itself” - To which I will add: And no thing can save it!

Indeed, and Jason's main point:

"Is it true that the average person believes that their self exists independently of the non-self? Using Kevin's terminology, does the average person believe that their self "inherently exists"? Kevin and others apparently believe this to be the case."

is misconceived as it conflates the meaning of the words 'independent' and 'inherent'.

Dave Toast wrote:he is conflating the meaning of the words 'independent' and 'inherent'.

What definition of "inherent" are you using? A conventional dictionary one? I'm referring to the term as it is used in the philosophy of Dan, Kevin and David.