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18882330 No.18882330 [Reply] [Original]

Do the Buddhist canons, the Tripiṭaka and/or Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, really support the modern neurological view of the soul or self? A.K. Warder writes:
>In Lokāyata and Buddhism mind is living matter itself, variously explained. In all Indian philosophy, with the partial exception of Navya Nyāya, language speaks only of classes, cannot reach particular events. Neurology now appears to confirm the Buddha's hypothesis of the unreality of the 'soul' or 'self' and to establish a Lokāyata-like view of consciousness as a property of matter, suitably arranged.

>> No.18882850

bump

>> No.18882896

I won't pretend to be an expert on Buddhism, but no they don't. From that excerpt, it seems as if he's saying that Buddhism denies the reality of the self (which is true) and that Lokāyata is materialist (which I think is true; iirc it's the materialist atomist school of thought). He's conflating "mind" with "self" here which is a little inaccurate. There are specific types of "mind" in Indic thought and even in Advaita some of those are psychosomatic; "mind" I synonymous with "consciousness" or "self".
So, basically, I might be wrong but it sounds like he's just trying to find some Indic precedent and does so by mixing different traditions and being a bit sloppy with terminology.

>> No.18882901

>>18882896
"mind" isn't synonymous with "consciousness"*

>> No.18883252

>>18882896
>>18882901
I see: because Buddhists see 'mind' as matter, whereas neurologists see mind as something coming *from* matter?

>> No.18883728
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18883728

>>18882330

>By denying outright the soul, by default, the Theravadins, western ‘scholars’ examining Buddhism, and modern "buddhists" imply that the five aggregates are ultimate. This of course is absurd. They have merely shifted Buddhism to an empiricism by ignoring pro-atman statements. According to them, what is real is what makes sensory knowledge possible, namely, the five aggregates which, ironically, according to the canon, are = Mara, or evil (papa); [SN 3.195] “Mara = five khandhas (empirical self)”. It begs the question to assume that the no-soul doctrine had been established at the beginning of the Buddha’s ministry and that the atman (soul) was, in every respect, an abhorrent term. Still, for such a supposedly abhorrent term, there are innumerable, are countless positive instances of atman used throughout the Nikayas, especially used in compounds which are easily glossed over by a prejudicial commentator and nominalist translators. In meeting these instances, not surprisingly, these same prejudicial translators have erected a theory that the atman is purely a reflexive pronoun.

>The lexical rule that atman (Pali: attan) is to be used strictly in a pronominal fashion, or simply should be used as a signifier for the finite body, is unwarranted. Scholars like C.A.F. Davids, Conze, Humphrey, Schrader, Horner, Pande, Coomarswamy, Radhakrishnan, Sogen, Suzuki, Julius Evola, and Nakamura, just to name some important scholars, disagree with the claim that Buddha categorically denied an eternal (nicca) soul, whose teachings then, would be classified as Annihilationist and Materialist. In fact there are utterly none living or dead who have examined the original texts in detail whilst refraining from sectarian and commentarial explanations and concluded Buddhism has in any way denied the atman thru and by means of the usage of the term anatta or otherwise.

>Modern Buddhism (so-called, not that it is Buddhism in any way) labors under the heinous delusion that from the outset there is no immaterial and ontological soul, or atman in the system of Buddhism and therefore the only logical conclusion from this false premise is that Buddhism is merely a profane moral Humanism based in compassionate empirical idealism, ‘liberation but no Liberant’, and this is palpably false. Under the guise of a more polished form of physicalism or rather, Atheism, a mere qualifier of objective phenomena, anatta, has overrun a noetic metaphysics, Buddhism, based in extracting the nous (spirit, citta, Self) from the objective cosmos (=anatta) wherein it has been miserably immersed since time immemorial as due to the attribute of the Absolute (Brahman, Greek = Hen), that being avijja (agnosis, nescience, as is philosophically meant Emanationism). Avijja (a+vijja (atman)) and anatta (an+atman) in no way differ, such that both refer to the beginningless privation, or objectivity immanent to the Absolute.

>> No.18883803

>>18883728
Hello Ken.

>> No.18883917

no, neurological viewpoint is based on 'objectivity', i.e. taking as much as possible of the subjective viewpoint away as possible

this is the opposite of the viewpoint of buddhism which completely is about relating not-self to the subject, i.e the 5 skandhas for the purposes of uprooting suffering. furthermore, materialist reductionism is expressly denied in mundane right view when the buddha argues for the at least conditional reality of phenomena (mother and father exist, you and I exist, suffering exists, those who have uprooted suffering exist). try reducing everythjng to material constituents as all your loved ones die around you - it doesnt uproot suffering and its not what the buddha taught

>> No.18883947
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18883947

>>18882330
>>In Lokāyata and Buddhism mind is living matter itself, variously explained.
This is EXACTLY one of the Wrong Views stated by Buddha in the first few Suttas. Pseudo-intellectual scientists.

>> No.18884023

>>18883917
You compared relative view of Buddhism to ultimate view of materialism.
Suttas in many places recommend practice of reducing composite things into their constituents in order to uncover Three Characteristics e.g. contemplation of dead body, dismantling 'being' into parts, like one would dismantle a chariot.

>> No.18884040

>>18883728
Good post.

>> No.18884142
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18884142

>>18882896
I doubt the author has read the prajñaparamita literature or he wouldn't make claims other than emptiness
>>18883252
no there are actually different sanskrit terms used; the Yogacara delineate this in deep scholastic detail e.g. Mahayanasamgraha, Cheng Weishi Lun, etc. Mind ends up being a form of consciousness along with the five senses which are also (somewhat oddly) considered consciousnesses (sight, sound, smell etc.) so mind becomes a consciousness of thoughts in the way that smell is a consciousness of odors
>>18883947
Yeah the brahmajala sutra in the digha nikaya

>> No.18884154
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18884154

>>18883728
I don't understand.

>> No.18884174

>>18884154
Its from here:

http://tibetanbuddhistencyclopedia.com/en/index.php/Anatta,_Anatman,_No-Self,_Soulessness_and_other_Nihilistic_bullshit_your_local_retarded_''buddhist''_will_tell_you_about.

>> No.18884188

>>18884174
Is it the same buttblasted guy blogpost, like the one from chinabuddhistencyclopedia that was shilled a couple years ago?

>> No.18884194

>>18884188
Yes, what makes it butt-blasted in your view?

>> No.18884202

>>18884194
Thing like this
>bullshit_your_local_retarded_''buddhist''_will_tell_you_about.
the whole post is overflowing with.

>> No.18884223

>>18884202
He's right that the average western reading is piss poor but that doesn't qualify his own reading as accurate

>> No.18884272

>>18884174
>Anatman (Sanskrit) / Anatta (Pali): Non-self; non-ego; ownerless; impersonality. The Buddhist negation of the Hindu understanding of Atman (the True Self) as an indestructible and immortal core of personal individuality. However, the Buddhist view of Emptiness (No Self / Ultimate Reality) corresponds exactly with the Hindu view of Atman (the True Self /Ultimate Reality).
So ultimately, there is nothing but Emptiness. This is why the spiritually superior gender is so fascinated by holes, while the other one can't get enough because it IS the hole.

>> No.18884291

>>18882330
>confirm the Buddha's hypothesis of the unreality of the 'soul' or 'self' and to establish a Lokāyata-like view of consciousness as a property of matter, suitably arranged.
Buddha never says the Soul or Self is unreal in the PC

>> No.18884346

>>18884291
Because he knew he would be misinterpreted and accused of being an annihilationist. He said that any view or theory about the self is rooted in ignorance and causes suffering.
When the Buddha looked at his foot, he didn't think "This foot is my self" or "This foot is not my self" or anything like that. The idea of self or not self is meaningless. It's just an outdated tool that the mind and uses to understand the world before proper wisdom is cultivated.

>> No.18884505

>>18884291
it's more than implied

>> No.18884709

>>18884346
>When the Buddha looked at his foot, he didn't think "This foot is my self" or "This foot is not my self" or anything like that.
Who does consider their foot to be their self?

>The idea of self or not self is meaningless.
How is it meaningless? That doesn’t seem true, it doesn’t make sense that a meaningless concept would be so focused on by philosophy and religion, by so many great thinkers.

>It's just an outdated tool that the mind and uses to understand the world before proper wisdom is cultivated.
How can it be outdated when it has remained a focus of humankind from ancient times to the present day?

>> No.18884716

>>18884505
how?

>> No.18884788

>>18884716
pratītyasamutpāda

>> No.18884825

>>18884788
That doesn’t imply anything about the self, since the self isn’t one of the 12 links in the chain

>> No.18884977

>>18884825
please be bait

>> No.18884994

>>18884977
its not

>> No.18885141

>>18884994
the self is subject to dependent origination and is thus empty

>> No.18885188

>>18885141
>the self is subject to dependent origination
Buddha never claims that in the Pali Canon

>> No.18885197

>>18884174
>Tibetan Buddhism

A bastard mixture of Buddhism and the native Bon religion that focuses on vain chantings, rituals and prayers, all of which the Buddha decried as useless and not conducive to liberation. Nothing they practice originates in the Pali Canon.

>> No.18885204

>>18885188
>Buddha doesn't say that 2+2 = 4 therefore he didn't believe it

>> No.18885215

Why do people say buddhism is nihilistic self-lobotomy et cetera?

>> No.18885226

>>18885197
Nobody in Asia uses the nikayas as a sola scriptura religious-fundamentalist text, you hyperprotestant.

>> No.18885229

>>18883728
Anatman is clearly a via negativa

>> No.18885240

>>18885215
It actually is for a certain class oc highly materialistic and/or nihilistic westerners who dabble in it long enough to be alone with their own sickly pre- or non-Buddhistic thoughts. Meditation just brings out one's innermost and a failure to overcome it is considered dangerous in the native context but largely ignored in the transmission to the west.

>> No.18885272

>>18885226
>Nobody in Asia uses the nikayas as a sola scriptura religious-fundamentalist text

Well I guess if nobody in Asia does it then that proves the value of apocryphal literature that runs contrary to what the canon says.

>> No.18885298

>>18885272
>i've got to do exactly what thousands of pages of text say
ngmi

>> No.18885318

>>18885298
>i've got to do exactly what thousands of pages of text say

Yes, that's the point.

>> No.18885325

>>18885204
>>Buddha doesn't say that 2+2 = 4 therefore he didn't believe it
What is the basis for assuming that the self is dependently originated if Buddha never said so? He had no problem listing other things which were dependently originated. Saying that it’s like 2+2 = 4 is not actually stating a valid reason why anyone should accept it, you are just putting your dogmatic attitude on display.

>> No.18885328

>>18885229
how so?

>> No.18885342

>>18885318
Get a load of this guy pointing at the moon

>> No.18885354
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18885354

>>18885325
>mfw I realize that strawberries aren't subject to dependent origination

>> No.18885358

>>18885215
because they don't know what buddhism is, they tend to use non buddhist categories to adress buddhist terms, the more common example is how most critics of buddhism think the pratityasamutpada, the 12 links system is an ontological concept when in reality is an epistemological one, which in turns creates all kind of missguided critics, one of them is thinking buddhism is nihilistic

>> No.18885403

>>18884709
>it doesn’t make sense that a meaningless concept would be so focused on by philosophy and religion, by so many great thinkers.
there's tons of concepts that stick even when thye're wrong, people though the earth was flat for millenia
>How can it be outdated when it has remained a focus of humankind from ancient times to the present day?
most modern philosophies already overcome the notion of a self, for better conceptualisations see hume, kant, hegel, wittgenstein, heidegegr etc, even science is already thnking outside the notion of a "self" to explain phenomena and consciousness

>> No.18885426

>>18885188
the self is primarly a form sankhara, the second link in the cycle

>> No.18885430

>>18885403
If "modern philosophy" is just catching up with no-self then Buddhism isn't outdated at all

>> No.18885446

>>18885325
I think the self is dependently originated at the step craving -> clinging, since one of the types of clinging is clinging to ideas about the self. And whichever aggregate one identifies as one's self is also dependently originated

>> No.18885459

The reason so many Buddhist sects still hold onto the concept of an everlasting self is because the idea of there being no "I" in all of this is a distressing idea to them. Humans are by nature egotistical and the concept of there being a "me" experiencing everything is of course central to the existence of the ego. They haven't yet learnt to let go of the idea of individuality because they still desperately want to believe in a solid foundation for existence when the Buddha said the only solid foundation was emptiness.

>> No.18885516

>>18885403
>there's tons of concepts that stick even when thye're wrong, people though the earth was flat for millenia
Okay, why is it meaningless though? That was just made as an unjustified assertion, there was never any reason given for it, for why so many brilliant thinkers would spend so much time on a ‘meaningless’ subject.
> >How can it be outdated when it has remained a focus of humankind from ancient times to the present day?
>most modern philosophies already overcome the notion of a self, for better conceptualisations see hume, kant, hegel, wittgenstein, heidegegr etc,
Why and how are these “better conceptualisations”?
>even science is already thnking outside the notion of a "self" to explain phenomena and consciousness
so?

>> No.18885607

>>18885426
> the self is primarly a form sankhara, the second link in the cycle
Those are described as “Volitional formations, Fabrications, constructions, and choices”. It doesn’t make sense to regard the self as being any of those. As pure consciousness or awareness the self is not that which engages in fabrications but is simply the awareness which is aware of fabrications. That awareness itself cannot be a fabrication, because it could not have been constricted/fabricated to begin with without that act of construction being known and preceded by awareness, if awareness precedes the construction, its not constructed. The self cannot be choices either since awareness is not a mental act like making choices which the mind engages it. The self simply remains as sentient presence without acting.

>> No.18885735

>>18885607
The Buddha never described "pure consciousness" as the self, if that were the case why didn't he just come out and say that when he was asked whether there was a self or not? Consciousness is not a stable, immutable substance, it is a process that arises depending on conditions, namely the contact between an object and one of the senses.

>> No.18885814

>>18885446
>I think the self is dependently originated at the step craving -> clinging, since one of the types of clinging is clinging to ideas about the self.
Ideas about the self are not the self itself, just like ideas about Nirvana are not Nirvana; therefore if ideas about the self are dependently originated, it doesn’t logically follow from this that the self itself is dependently originated. Also, mental acts of clinging are not self-aware, they are known by an awareness or presence that differs from them. And that presence which knows them is not itself an idea but it is what the knowledge of all ideas presupposes. If you have pure awareness being aware of the mind thinking about a concept of self, that awareness is actually the self and not the pseudo-self that is the object of the thought or conceptualization.

>> No.18885874

>>18885459
>Humans are by nature egotistical and the concept of there being a "me" experiencing everything is of course central to the existence of the ego.
You dont deny that you have experience, so who is then?
>They haven't yet learnt to let go of the idea of individuality because they still desperately want to believe in a solid foundation for existence when the Buddha said the only solid foundation was emptiness.
In which passage did Buddha say emptiness is a foundation?

>> No.18885954

>>18885874
>You dont deny that you have experience, so who is then?

The mind, which is not myself, is experiencing objects through the sense doors.

>In which passage did Buddha say emptiness is a foundation?

He says that emptiness is the only unconditioned and unfabricated thing, everything emerges from it, thus making it the only stable thing in existence.

>> No.18885964
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18885964

>>18885459
Emptiness is empty

>> No.18885984

>>18885735
>The Buddha never described "pure consciousness" as the self,
No, but other schools and scriptures do. Identifying the self with awareness in some way is a fairly common position among various Indian schools even though they differ on the exact details. Buddha never described the self as being anything or as having any particular nature, so, in the absence of him giving a description of it we have to supply our own
>if that were the case why didn't he just come out and say that when he was asked whether there was a self or not?
If the self was dependently originated and unreal why didnt he say so when asked about the self? That question can go either way.
>Consciousness is not a stable, immutable
It is stable and immutable, because instability and immutability only characterize non-conscious phenomena, they cannot be shown to characterize consciousness itself. What is more stable than something that has been with you all your life, for longer than your memory can recall?
>it is a process that arises depending on conditions, namely the contact between an object and one of the senses
We dont ever experience our consciousness as being produced by the contacts of senses with objects, but its presence precedes them, this is how we are able to detect physical objects entering into our awareness or vision, if our awareness was produced by the contact of that object with our sense organ, then we wouldn’t be able to witness it entering into awareness because this requires a presence being there prior to and during the moment of its arising, but we do in fact witness this which shows awareness isn’t produced by those conditions.

>> No.18885990

>>18882330
Why is he surrounded by two imps? Why is Buddha always depicted as having elongated earlobes? Did they have spacers back then.

>> No.18885994

You can't be a Buddhist and lurk/post on 4chan. It violates half of the 8 precepts.

>> No.18886053

>>18885984
Have you read the sutta with Sati the Fisherman? He had similar ideas on consciousness. The suttas are clear on the fact that consciousness is dependently arisen. Consciousness can take past consciousness as its object, which I think explains why arising can be discerned.

>> No.18886121

>>18885954
>The mind, which is not myself, is experiencing objects through the sense doors.
There is awareness of this though, which cannot be denied except by the fool, so who or what is aware of this? Is it the mind and its thoughts/sensations that are self-aware? If its not a separate awareness who is aware of thoughts there is nothing else to be aware of them aside from those thoughts themselves. But this doesn’t make any sense, if thoughts are self-aware, how can they lead to ordered patterns of thought if that awareness ceases when that thought ends? There would be no way to form complex streams of thoughts when there is never any continuity of awareness between the components of this stream of reasoning. Moreover, if that self-aware thought just consists of that thought being aware of itself, it wouldn’t be able to place itself in relation to other thoughts and give rise to complex meaning as these would be additional thoughts different from the thought in point.


>>In which passage did Buddha say emptiness is a foundation?
>He says that emptiness is the only unconditioned and unfabricated thing, everything emerges from it, thus making it the only stable thing in existence.

>> No.18886134

>>18885954
>He says that emptiness is the only unconditioned and unfabricated thing,
source? I thought Nirvana was unconditioned
>everything emerges from it, thus making it the only stable thing in existence.
Okay, how is space unstable then? And also it’s a contradiction to say anything emerges from emptiness, if emptiness contains anything that can emerge from it, then it’s not empty, since emptiness by definition doesn’t contain anything.

>> No.18886195

>>18886134
You're getting into Mahayana vs Theravada here. In the Pali Canon, the Abhidharma states that there are a handful of things that are unconditioned (space, nirvana, and time). You cannot interact with space or time. Time is just a facet of the universe, and space is just space. You "move through" them. We should be wary, however, of assuming that this means that the Abhidharma postulates "time particles" or "space fields", because it absolutely does not. The Abhidharma is absolutely unconcerned with such things to even pother postulating that.

Having said that, Western Physicists absolutely disagree with that (you can indeed interact with space and time), Western Academics disagree with that (the Abhidharma was probably written by monks within two centuries of the Buddha's death), and more importantly Madhyamakins (which might as well be synonymous with Mahayanins) disagree with that. Nagarjuna argues that space, time, and nirvana are all absolutely Empty.

>> No.18886368

>>18886053
>Have you read the sutta with Sati the Fisherman?
Not that I can recall, if you want to post a link to it I’ll read it
>He had similar ideas on consciousness.
Really? I’m skeptical but like I said I’ll look at it if you post the right one
>The suttas are clear on the fact that consciousness is dependently arisen.
They may clearly state this as an unproven dogma, but I have never seen the Pali Suttas provide any good arguments or logical reasons for accepting this as true, moreover the Pali Cannon incorrectly labels as “types of consciousness” things which are actually unconscious phenomena being known by awareness, like sound and sight etc being labeled as “eye-consciousness” So if the Suttas get obvious stuff like that wrong about consciousness, why should anyone trust what else they say about consciousness?
>Consciousness can take past consciousness as its object, which I think explains why arising can be discerned.
That isn’t really a satisfactory solution which eliminates the problem, because we experience things arising in the present moment of them arising, instead of all change being recreated through memory after the fact. When I turn on the shower, as soon as the water hits my skin I am aware of its warmth, I dont suddenly have a gap where my awareness comes into existence and then recreates the past feeling of the water hitting my skin, instead its directly presented to my present awareness without interruption. Moreover, we encounter so many arisings of small changes in perception in every moment just while walking around that if every arising of change was actually perceived through awareness of past consciousness, in order to capture so many changes and be aware of them all our mind would have no time to do anything but continually be focused on the past with no time to address or respond to the present.

>> No.18886441

>>18886195
>Having said that, Western Physicists absolutely disagree with that (you can indeed interact with space and time)
Do you have a source for the claim that you can interact with space? How are they proposing this happens?
> Nagarjuna argues that space, time, and nirvana are all absolutely Empty.
How can Nagarjuna argue that space is sunyata or empty of inherent existence when space is not produced by any reaction, act or causal relation? It cannot be shown that space arises on the basis of anything else. If space does not arise on the basis of other things, then by Nagarjunas own definitions it cannot be empty or sunyata.

>> No.18886471

>>18883728
Look how defensively this reads. This guy knows he isnt winning the argument at the end of the day.

>> No.18886487

>no self
Buddhists are on the same level as western physicalist reductionist bugmen to me. No difference
If you deny the absolute reality of the self, you're a golem. Seethe all you want, it's true

>> No.18886726

>>18886441
>Do you have a source for the claim that you can interact with space? How are they proposing this happens?
Modern Physics posits that we don't actually live in 3D space and time, we live in 4D Minkowski space-time (some autist can criticize me for being too simple here, but this works). The important thing here is that 1) space and time are not separate, they are one single thing, and 2) if you go fast enough in the first 3 dimensions, you start altering how you move through the 4th dimension. In this sense, spacetime is not a container (as English colloquially refers to space and time as being), nor is it just a sort of fact of the universe (as the Abhidharma takes it as being), but rather it is a sort of cosmological fundament of the universe. Spacetime is, in a sense, part of things (at the smallest levels; at the higher levels you can meaningfully view spacetime as a field that you move through, like a fish through water).

>> No.18886770

>>18886726
>Modern Physics posits that we don't actually live in 3D space and time, we live in 4D Minkowski space-time (some autist can criticize me for being too simple here, but this works).
People can posit anything, the only question of importance here is: have scientists demonstrated that space can be interacted with? If they haven't produced a demonstration that this is so, then citing them is not really worth anything in a debate on metaphysics/ontology, since theories are constantly being proposed, rejected and rewritten all the time in science. Hypotheticals are not positive proof.

>The important thing here is that 1) space and time are not separate, they are one single thing, and 2) if you go fast enough in the first 3 dimensions, you start altering how you move through the 4th dimension.
How is that an interaction? Space remains unchanged by the speed people move through it, if space is unchanged, it's not an interaction.

>> No.18886790

>>18886726
Now, having said that, YOU as an individual can't really interact with spacetime in a meaningful way. Space and time being separate is a simplification, but the error from this simplification is basically zero. Things that are incredibly fast, incredibly heavy, or incredibly special are where this is important. For example, two black holes collided some time ago. A gravity telescope was used to detect this. Essentially, a long hallway, precisely measured, has a laser pointed at one end. If gravitational waves (that is, ripples in spacetime) are real, then we can measure them via this laser; the time it takes for the light to move from one end of the hall to the other is measured. And, sure enough, the waves were detected as the hall got ever so slightly shorter and longer in a periodic manner, which agreed with measurements of the movement of the blackholes made via telescope.

Where this goes back to Buddhism is that under the Abhidharmin idea, this shouldn't happen. You CAN'T interact with something that is unconditioned, period. This is part of the Buddhist criticism of Atmans: even if you found one, you couldn't see it, hear it, smell it, touch it, punch it, or even think of it (the sixth sense in Indian thought, "mind", is used to imagine things, but also talk to yourself via internal monologue, and is also used to perceive supernatural phenomena).

Nagarjuna's criticism of the non-Emptiness of space and time comes from a similar logical argument rather than an empirical one (he obviously couldn't cite black holes after all). He's attacking a specific Abhidharmin argument here, and his criticism boils down to (as all of critiques really amount to) demonstrating that any attempt at defining space as being unconditioned either require infinite regresses or absurd conclusions (like space being nothing; Buddhists reject "nothing" as being something that can exist).

In a simple sense, we can demonstrate the arising and falling of space by just getting up and walking around. The very fact that you can move at all is a demonstration that you can interact with space.

>> No.18886824

>>18886770
>have scientists demonstrated that space can be interacted with?
I answer this in >>18886790, but you can also do this with the speed of light and time crystals. A REALLY crude example of this is demonstrating spacetime dilation via clocks.

>Space remains unchanged by the speed people move through it, if space is unchanged, it's not an interaction.
Gravity and the speed of light, but more importantly you're making the mistake of separating space and time. Space and time aren't real, spacetime is (again, according to the theory). The very fact that gravity exists is an example of interacting with spacetime conceived of as "just space" (a pure hypothetical), but more importantly spacetime dilation allows you to interact with "just time" and "just space" as speed (or, more so, acceleration) requires movement through both "just time" and "just speed" (again, pure hypotheticals, "spacetime" means that you CAN'T only move through one or the other in any meaningful sense).

>> No.18886905

>>18886368
>the Pali Cannon incorrectly labels as “types of consciousness” things which are actually unconscious phenomena being known by awareness, like sound and sight etc being labeled as “eye-consciousness” So if the Suttas get obvious stuff like that wrong about consciousness, why should anyone trust what else they say about consciousness?
That doesn't mean that sight or an eyeball is conscious or unconscious, it means you as a perceiver have a [sense-]consciousness of what is seen.

>> No.18886962

>>18886905
He's getting hung up on "Consciousness", which he understands as being a sort of background blackbox computer in your brain that you only have one of. Vijnana, as you correctly point out, is really just a sort of mental activity caused by sensory input. It doesn't require an Atman at all, which is the entire point as this is an attempt at modeling how mental phenomena works in absence of an Atman. There's zero point in having the Vijnanas at all if you believe in an Atman however because you're already rejecting empirical experience and don't need to break sensory data and its resulting mental phenomena up in this way because you can bypass that entirely and just say that the eye feeds data into the blackbox (thereby bypassing the need to actually have "picking up sensory data" twice).

Yes, this means that not only are non-humans capable of Vijnana, but so are things like incredibly large fungal mats, large clonal forests, plasma clouds, and even incredibly complicated computers. Buddhism fully accepts the mental validity of all sorts of whacky non-human shit, like Nagas and Devas and Asuras and Hungry Ghosts, particularly clever forests are just one of the many things that you can be reborn as.

>> No.18887576

>>18885607
>As pure consciousness or awareness the self is not that which engages in fabrications but is simply the awareness which is aware of fabrications.
you don't know that, you're commiting a petitio principii fallacy, or begging the question, the whole point of this is that the self is not the same as pure awarness, since there's a component of reflexion, the self is always related to a proces sof self identification in which creates a form
the thing prior to that doesn't need to be the self at all, since the only way youhave to experiment the self is by volitional forms
this creates a huge probelm of identifcation with this supoussed "primal awarness" since the only thing you can use to perceive it is the same thing you recognize is opposite in substance, so pure awarness and the constructions she perceives, need a bridge in order to be conected, this bridge don't exist, since that would need a third type of substance(something similar to the problem of the third manin the aristotelian critic of plato theory of froms)
buddhas teachings resolved this probem in a much clever way, abandoning an ontology if substances and developing an epistemology of relationships, which let us create usefull categories to develop a trascendental system without using crypto,materialistic terms like god or the soul, which end up reducing human experience to a narcissitic(self) endevour where all we do is worship idols (gods)
in buddhis dharma the trascendnetal(nibbana) is a practice and not a thing and the problematic(dukkha) is not some vague metaphysical condition but something we can all grasp in our own lives

>> No.18887617

>>18885984
>We dont ever experience our consciousness as being produced by the contacts of senses with objects
yes we do, it's the only way we experience things

>> No.18887649

>>18886441
you're trying to see space as a substance, which is not, even in times of newton the idea of space as a substance was controversial, now even more so

>> No.18889128

>>18885607
this is guenonfag once again trying to impose his dogmatic vision of the self as pre existient pure awarness
he will be schoole donce more on all his logical errors but he will dumb down and backtrack on his fallacies witout understand he has to justify his arguments and not just repeat them again and again

>> No.18889145

>>18886134
>since emptiness by definition doesn’t contain anything.
you're using a dictionary definition, emptiness in a buddhist context means empty of barriers, things being empty means, nothing has a barrier that can divide it ontologically from anything else, everything is interconected, everything arises from emptyness since emptyness is the pure state if interdependence, not in a temporal way but a metaphysical one
saing everything is empty, is saying everything is conected, emptyness being the fundament of existence means everything in existence is interdependent and conected with everything else
it doesn't mean everything is hollow or devoided of meaning, just means that meaning as a principle works as a from of conection with every other meaning or being in the phenomenical world

>> No.18889165

>>18886134
>how is space unstable then?
space (also time) warps and compress all the time across the universe
that's just the basis of general relativity bro

>> No.18889337

>>18885459
which sects hold on to that?

>> No.18889342

>>18885990
>The Buddha, a former prince, was born in Lumbini and raised in Kapilvastu (both located in Nepal), where the culture and tradition was for men to display their wealth and prosperity on their ears, must have adorned large and heavy ear jewelry made of precious metals and stones, and this may have resulted in having stretched ears, alongside the rich men of that period. It was likely he would have worn similar kind of ear ornaments from his childhood till adulthood as a sign of his wealth. Though the prince stopped wearing them when he left the palace to become an ascetic while on the search for the ultimate answer, his earlobes remained stretched. This may also be taken as the Buddha’s renunciation of the physical world.

>> No.18889672

>>18886471
it's probably Ken

>> No.18890033

>>18882330
>Indian philosophy is allowed to develop relatively unhindered for about 1500 years
>suddenly Islam arrives and Indian culture stagnates
hmmm

>> No.18890653

bump

>> No.18891173

>>18886487
I'm sure you've read the buddhist texts.

>> No.18891489

>>18885215
Because they're retarded and haven't actually read/understood the primary texts.

>> No.18891843

>>18885430
>Buddhism isn't outdated at all
indeed

>> No.18891900

>>18885516
>there was never any reason given for it, for why so many brilliant thinkers would spend so much time on a ‘meaningless’ subject.
even brilliant people get stuck in dogmatism
>Why and how are these “better conceptualisations”?
because they addressed those argumentations throug and come up with better ones, paradigms evolve, and the more time passes, better and more sophisticated ideas(a great example is the advaita idea of time which is absolutely outdated annd against every notion modern physics have of space) are created, the self is outdated because it creates ilogical forms of dualism, or metaphysical cop outs like non dualism
>so?
i'm just responidng to your "argumentum ad verecundiam" with a "better argumentum ad verecundiam"
you wanna make an argument from authority? well i have even better autorities to rely on

>> No.18891905

>>18883728
>, Suzuki, Julius Evola, and Nakamura
>just to name some important scholars


lol

>> No.18892247
File: 486 KB, 500x750, Evola Drawing.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
18892247

>>18891905
Evola has been called the most important right-wing-thinker today. He's definitely important.

>> No.18892338

>>18883728
from day to day those the midwit curve on the iq grows larger and it makes me more insecure when I look at it. I hate memetic evolution.
Also, fuck you, I know many modern buddhists and they tend to say the soul is 'unknowable' - they hold the existence or lack of soul as a personal leap of faith and then they either believe it or not, then the rest of the world they say follow normal empirical scientific rules etc etc.

>> No.18892347

>>18884023
yes but you don't need to see them as just that. It's another trick of the mind/soul/consciousness whatever that we see those amalgamated things as more than the sum of their parts, but this 'trick' is not really incorrect as a materialist view would say.

>> No.18892474

>>18892247
>today
He's dead
>important x 2
To who? Poltroons?