/lit/ - Literature

>>22601710
It’s really not that important, Nagarjuna doesn’t provide any irrefutable truth of emptiness being true (so it’s really meaningless to say that sunyata is “””irrefutable”””), and as Richard Robinson showed in his classic article, Nagarjuna relies on classic sophist tricks in his arguments:

“The nature of the Madhyamika trick is now quite clear. It consists of (a)
reading into the opponent's views a few terms which one defines for him in a self-contradictory way, and (b) insisting on a small set of axioms which are at variance with common sense and not accepted in their entirety by any known philosophy. It needs no insistence to emphasize that the application of such a critique does not demonstrate the inadequacy of reason and experience to provide intelligible answers to the usual philosophical questions.

If you aren’t already a committed Buddhism who takes the claims of Buddhist authorities seriously for dogmatic reasons then there is no reason for one to take sunyata/Nagarjuna very seriously. He doesn’t provide any argument that refutes a non-empty Absolute Being or Brahman or Supreme Self but he basically just attacks fellow Buddhists and Nyayins, but that doesn’t show why Vedanta or Trika or Daoism or Neoplatonism or Sufi metaphysics is wrong.

Also, all the Buddhist schools disagree about what Nagarjuna taught and they cant agree on the most basic stuff about him.

And if the whole point is just to establish a basic-bitch skeptic relativism then it makes no sense to accept all the supernatural claims in Buddhism like rebirth, karma etc.

>>22601739
Also, by the admission of Madhyamaka writers and Buddhist scholars themselves, there is no one “master argument” that establishes sunyata as true, but they just try to attack alternatives to sunyata; but these attacks on other systems contain identifiable fallacies, and whats more they dont even attack all known metaphysical doctrines in India alone, much less in other regions, so it’s completely absurd to say that Nagarjuna attacking Nyayins and other Buddhists somehow establishes by fiat Sunyata as true.

>>22601710

the nagarjuna journey is interesting but the results are quite mediocre
I’ve been meditating for the past 2 years on his little riddles. turns out all of the answers were in the first 20 pages of spinoza’s ethics

>>22601739
>>22601775
Hundreds of years and we still have people seething over Nagarjuna. At least look at the citations for that paper, the Hayes-Robinson critique has been argued with for years in a back and forth.
>>22602181
I've never looked at spinoza, what are his similarities to Nagarjuna?

>>22602181
Nope, Spinoza doesn't solve anything. This is ultimately the oldest, hardest, yet most noble question in philosophy: what is Being, and why is there something rather than nothing? Spinoza ultimately falls into the timeless trap of considering Being as genus. Aristotle and Aquinas spent many pages showing why the conception of Being as a universal genus or substance is wrong, despite common sense intuition like Spinoza's arguing the contrary, and still no one seems to care that Being cannot be a genus, because it would need something outside of itself to differentiate itself into species. Which would ipso facto imply that Being is not the highest genus, and there is something which "is" (which partakes of Being), which does not partake of Being. Even Plato alludes to it in his Sophist dialogue when he shows that Being cannot be sameness, difference, becoming, or become, or any of the other categories, because Being is not a category, therefore Being is not a substance, therefore being is not "infinite essence", which implies that Spinoza is wrong from the very beginning.

How many mistakes in philosophy are perpetuated because of this confusion are likely uncountable. I would probably consider it worse than even Nagarjuna's question of emptiness, because at least contemplating the "pure nothing" (impossible) is interesting.

>>22602412
>at least contemplating the "pure nothing" (impossible)
It is impossible, which is why the Madhyamika catuskoti is an exercise rather than a direct statement. You have to arrive a priori at the truth.

>>22602423
>which is why the Madhyamika catuskoti is an exercise rather than a direct statement. You have to arrive a priori at the truth.
What is the truth? I'm interested.

>>22601710
>and is irrefutb-
*blocks your path*

>Desideri starts from Nagarjuna's assertion: "For him to whom emptiness is clear, everything becomes clear. For him to whom emptiness is not clear, Nothing becomes clear." Having therefore stated that all things will not be real without the correct definition of emptiness, he works in this direction, summarizing in this way: "since all phenomena are empty of existence of themselves, because they are interdependent, it follows that "interdependence" is the meaning of "emptiness." ... The missionary fully accepts the first part of this reasoning, that is, that all things are contingent and strictly produced by causes and therefore without their own nature; this appears indisputable to him. He therefore focuses his efforts on showing that this conceptual construction lacks coherence if no "Primary Cause" is introduced to start the whole process, an absolutely independent entity. He begins immediately and confidently to contrast the two positions: If we look carefully, the whole system of truth and non-truth lies in these two opinions, and that is:

>1. The Mãdhyamika maintain that not even an absolute independent entity exists;
>2. We believe in this existence of an absolute independent entity. We must therefore carefully examine which of our two opinions is correct and which is wrong

>In contrast to his interlocutors, the courageous explorer proposes an "Existent being beyond the sphere of existing things" and supports this with a substantial series of profound arguments starting with the consideration that the "dependent" in itself requires the independent, continuing with the necessity of a primary cause in order not to retract the principle of causality, and again with the contention of the eternity and infinity of the chain of causality (infinite regress) which would not permit the manifestation of the world in which we live. Last, he focuses on the fact that if nothing exists by its own nature, then neither does the whole sphere of existing things, but then this must depend on an "other" without which it could not have manifested itself in any way, and this in turn leads inevitably to a contradiction without the introduction of a supreme Being outside of interdependence (existing of itself and not by cause)

QED

/thread

>>22602432
In brief, he essentially states that existence is irrational since you cannot actually equivocate anything or confirm anything. He explains this with the catuskoti, a series of four statements.
1. There is X
2. There is not X
3. There is both X and not-X
4. There is neither X nor not-X
His arguments are structured based on this framework, and they are basically exercises to help you look past confusion and attachment.
>>22602435
Never heard of this guy before, thanks for bringing him up anon. I genuinely thought he was indian from his name, but apparently he is italian. He insists on a first cause based on the neoaristotelean view, but this view is denied by Buddhists since reincarnation is not infinite without an infinite and timeless universe.

>>22602457
>but this view is denied by Buddhists since reincarnation is not infinite without an infinite and timeless universe.
This response actually points to an amusing contradiction in Buddhism/Nagarjuna, your response is basically saying "well the Neoaristotelean argument that this scheme results in an untenable vicious regress is not applicable from the Buddhist POV because they simply accept that the universe is infinite and timeless and has always existed and reincarnation has always been going on."

However, this would actually disprove the thesis of sunyata because in that cause the universe would be self-supporting, the universe would no longer be "other-dependent" and hence no longer 'empty' if it just naturally exists timelessly without depending on anything besides itself in order to do so, so trying to hold that as your position while advocating sunyata is like trying to have your cake and eat it too, it just doesn't work out and isn't philosophically serious.

And if you say that the "universe" is just a phrase for a collection of empty, transient and non-timeless phenomena which arise in dependence upon each other, then you are right back at square one and face the same regress with regard to the possibility of them being present as such at all.

>>22602484
An absolute universe doesn't exist, that is the principle of dependent arising. Trying to find out about the first cause is a spook, it's a pointless and unknowable exercise. Buddhism is concerned with epistemology rather than ontology, so who cares. You should actually read and try to understand buddhist texts before you complain about this principle.

>>22602484
>this would actually disprove the thesis of sunyata because in that cause the universe would be self-supporting, the universe would no longer be "other-dependent"

not the guy you're arguing with nor an expert, but it seems like "self-supporting" would be the wrong term to apply to a universe of strict dependent origination, for this is to treat the universe as a kind of principle in itself when (I think) the buddhist claim is that the universe is nothing more than an unsupported and groundless field of endlessly changing lines of cause and effect which render every particular thing empty. to abstract a principle from these endless sequences and call this field the ultimate and timeless self-supporting ground of itself would be to claim the changing universe is unchanging. Indeed to speak of timelessness at all in the buddhist context (which the other guy did) is literally incoherent for this reason, for the universe is purely time, purely causation.

I think you're assuming that some ultimate principle must be the cause of itself in a way that transcends and is outside all particular instances of causation, when in the Buddhist picture there is no such thing, because there is nothing but particular causation. There is no "outside" of the universe, and the universe is only an aggregate. buddhists emphasize experiencing emptiness over intellectually grasping it because to intellectualize it is to treat it as if it were a ultimate principle rather than the truth within a causal universe.

>>22601739
>not accepted in their entirety by any known philosophy
not my boy Dragon Lord's fault you are stupid i mean you could just try not accepting baseless discourse as absolute reality
>>22602435
>this in turn leads inevitably to a contradiction without the introduction of a supreme Being outside of interdependence
just so this is the fault of your dumb baseless desert priors

>>22601739
>Nagarjuna doesn’t provide any irrefutable truth of emptiness being true
He provides irrefutable arguments against the existence of atmans and things that don't have atmans are Empty, so yes in an absolute sense he does not demonstrate that Emptiness is universally true because his entire rhetorical method is to demonstrate that no universally true statements can be made in human language because atmans don't exist.

>>22602412
>what is Being
Luckily Spinoza writes on that at length!

>>22602484
>the universe would be self-supporting
Buddhist metaphysics does not consider "the universe" to be a thing. We can only speak of "the universe" as a big heap of parts. So, yes, you would be right if "the universe" were a thing that it self-supporting, but it's not. Buddhist cosmology holds that universes (of which there are many) arise and fall just like all phenomena.

>then you are right back at square one
Yep. Language can't perfectly describe reality, only direct experience can. That's the whole point.

>>22602637
>Language can't perfectly describe reality, only direct experience can.
But then how do you perfectly describe reality using language?

>>22602639
You don't. Indian philosophers, at a very early period, came to the conclusion that you can't do what you're suggesting. To deal with that, they instead opted for direct experience via high states of consciousness. This is in complete contrast to the basic views of Greek philosophy, which hold that this can be done. It's an axiomatic disagreement, you either believe that words can perfectly describe the world or they can't.

>>22602613
Yep, this is what I was trying to say. Really sleepy today for some reason, so I don't want to write so much.
>>22602639
You don't, the MMK is written to guide bhikkus towards a priori understanding of reality.

Unrelated, but does anyone have any other Buddhist statue masterpieces like this one? I want to compile a folder of them.

>>22601710
LOL nagurjuna was one of the first books i bought when i first moved out at 18 entirely because the cover art looked "cool" i literally didnt understand this shit back then (what the fuck am i reading.jpg) and still dont understand it now. that book went into the trash 15 years ago

>>22602641
to be fair plato definitely did think language could not adequately describe the structure of reality and then henosis in Plotinus is exactly that type of "high state of consciousness"

>>22602654
God I love thangkas. Anyways, see >>22602457
for an overly simplified version of Nagarjuna

>>22602637
>Luckily Spinoza writes on that at length!
and luckily I refuted everything he had to say about Being at length in my post. which you had nothing to say about, yet you continued on as if nothing happened. What a dumb reply.

>>22602457
>1. There is X
>2. There is not X
>3. There is both X and not-X
>4. There is neither X nor not-X
Reminds me of Late Plato, especially Parmenides.
>In brief, he essentially states that existence is irrational since you cannot actually equivocate anything or confirm anything.
If existence is irrational, then how are we supposed to use logic at all? What is the basis for it to work?

>>22602694
>By God, I mean a being absolutely infinite—that is, a substance consisting in infinite attributes, of which each expresses eternal and infinite essentiality.

>Explanation—I say absolutely infinite, not infinite in its genus: for, of a thing infinite only in its genus, infinite attributes may be denied; but that which is absolutely infinite, contains in its essence whatever expresses reality, and involves no negation.

and then all determination in spinoza is just partial negation of this infinite essence by itself as a facet of its infinite power

>>22602607
>Ummmmm all these other non-Buddhist doctrines are wrong on their ontology because of X..... that's why Buddhism is better okay?!
>NOOOOOO you can't just point out contradictions in the premise of Buddhists/Madhyamakins!!!?!? That's n-not fair! W-we don't care about ontology
kek

>>22602637
>Yep. Language can't perfectly describe reality, only direct experience can. That's the whole point.
That's where the Madhyamaka perspective is logically inconsistent, it tries to use regress arguments to refute other doctrines and cites that logic as a reason to not accept those things as true but when the viscous regress about the possibility of dependent things being present at all is pointed out, the Madhyamakin tries to plead a special exception and obfuscates about not being able to describe reality, but if the Madhyamakin was being consistent then the other doctrines he rejected earlier on account of regress would also be permissible if this is what his approach actually is.

>>22602700
I see what you mean, really should read more Plato one day to find more similarities.
>If existence is irrational, then how are we supposed to use logic at all? What is the basis for it to work?
Very good question, this is actually one of the main questions Nagarjuna tries to answer. His work is basically a systematic rejection of metaphysics and logic in the formal sense, in that he critiques and tears through many Buddhist schools while also guiding the bhikku to look past his own argumentation as well to understand his thesis-that he has none. Its hard to explain.

>>22602782
You really need to read some real texts, since you have some misconceptions about what buddhists actually believe. The religion does have some consistent dogmas like karma and the 4 truths, but Nagarjuna found out the nature of nirvana as samsara without qualities.

>>22602814
>You really need to read some real texts
I have read some, and I'm familiar with several types of interpretations of Nagarjuna that are common both historically in India and Tibet and in academia now; in fact when I talk to random people on 4chan or other places online they are often just repeating the interpretation of the Buddhist sub-school or 20th/21st century scholar that they follow, and these answers are often mutually exclusive with each other. The Gelug view of him is at odds with and heavily criticizes the view in vogue among some 20th/21st century scholars of viewing him as some sort of Wittgensteinian skeptic.

>but Nagarjuna found out the nature of nirvana as samsara without qualities.
Can you elaborate? How can samsara be without qualities when phenomenal qualities are experienced?

>>22602833
>How can samsara be without qualities when phenomenal qualities are experienced?
Through cessation of attachment to the five aggregates, this is a fundamental aspect of buddhism. Either you skimmed your readings or didn't understand them since this is a fundamental detail.

>>22602869
>Through cessation of attachment to the five aggregates, this is a fundamental aspect of buddhism
Do you mean that in the sense of

1) When you are no longer attached to the aggregates, rebirth ends and phenomenon qualities are no longer experienced since consciousness, perception etc has ended in the post-death state

or

2) When you are no longer craving and interested in the aggregates then those aggregates and the experiences connected with them are "without qualities"

The problem with number one is that Samsara is really Nirvana and vice versa in name only, but Nirvana isn't really "Samsara without qualities" until Samsara is ended, which contradicts what Nagarjuna writes about there being no difference between Samsara and Nirvana.

The problem with number two is that is contradicts everything about our experience and also is just illogical, even if someone is not mentally attached to anything, the mere perceptual knowledge of something still involves knowledge of some phenomenal content like color, sound etc, erasing mental craving etc doesn't shut off all knowledge of qualia or the 5 senses etc.

>>22602887
I'll leave an answer to this to one of the other Buddhist posters here since I'm too tired, but those are useful questions.

>>22602887
>even if someone is not mentally attached to anything, the mere perceptual knowledge of something still involves knowledge of some phenomenal content
the purpose of buddhism is not to dissect the universe and provide a schematic of how it unfolds, it is about inducing mystical-religious experience and faith in a soteriological praxis... there's no "someone" who stops experiencing phenomena and keeps on being "someone" the question already assumes there is a persistent self-nature which must always be accounted for (when Buddhism generally disputes this), and if that's the case you might as well be asking "if buddhists believe x why do hindus/christians/atheists believe y?"

>>22601739
Thank you for knowing this

>>22601799
Hegel is a stupid faggot.

>>22602639
You don't dumb logocentrist.

>>22602648
I'm a fan of Zanabazar

>>22602793
Nagarjuna rejects any definitive statement on the nature of reality by proving that they are illogical, he does not reject logic itself

>>22602793
>>22603108
I'm hear to listen to any more you have to say about Nagarjuna's project, especially dealing with how logic still works in an irrational world.

>>22603655
The world isn't irrational, claiming that anything exists, does not exist, both exists and does not exist, neither exists nor does not exist is irrational. Existence is refuted through the Five Madhyamika Reasonings. Non-existence is refuted because there can be no non-existence independent of existence. Existence and non-existence is refuted by refuting both individually. Neither existence nor non-existence is refuted because the view which refutes both existence and non-existence cannot be ultimately established and should not be clung to. The ultimate view of emptiness is freedom from these four extremes, but it can be reached through logically investigating the nature of conventional truth. As Nagarjuna says in his Sixty Stanzas on Reasoning, "as for saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, these two do not exist. However thorough knowledge of saṃsāra is nirvāṇa."

>>22603720
How is emptiness different from non-existence?

>>22602757
>takes Being as a genus
Again, you ignored the crux of the problem. But at least you tried to address it. I appreciate it.

>>22602935
> there's no "someone" who stops experiencing phenomena and keeps on being "someone" the question already assumes there is a persistent self-nature
It’s not seriously disputable that phenomenal qualities are experienced, acknowledging this is a matter of basic epistemology that is independent of one’s position on ontology and identity, the mere fact of participating in a discussion presupposes having some knowledge of phenomenal content (that has objective qualities) in the form of the medium through which other people and/or their speech is known; and this doesn’t cease to be true if one accepts anatta or anti-foundationalism or other ship-of-theseus-type identity models.

>>22602400
it doesn’t take long to read, especially if you’re already reading nagarjuna which is a lot harder to understand. just buy a copy of the ethics. i can’t type out all of his proofs on a 4chan post without sounding like an asshole
>>22602412
being and nonbeing are conjugates of the same reality, and you’re correct that all of the terms you listed are processes rather than substances, although I don’t see how it helps your argument. I’ve never even heard of any philosopher equating “being” with substance, so I’m not sure how truthful you’re being here
and Spinoza’s God shouldn’t be likened to “being”. using the term nature is a little closer to the truth of it, God is present in all existing things because everything that exists is contingent to God’s own existence. that isn’t the same question

>>22602694
>and luckily I refuted everything he had to say about Being
Really? Spinoza wrote a lot on this topic, and you haven't actually read what he had to say on it. Maybe you should look into what he thought before having an opinion on it?

>>22604087
Correct, the experiencing of phenomena does not require an atman.

>>22603854
"Emptiness" is the nominal form of "Empty". "Empty" is a characteristic used to describe things that exist. Things exist as aggregates in a process of continuity between states occurring as a flow of said aggregates. In Buddhist ontology, a thing exists: "being Empty" is one of the descriptors of it. Things exist "Emptily". If a thing were not Empty, it could not exist. The Buddha goes into this at length, Nagarjuna is mostly just reducing those arguments down to a more syllogistic form.

If an atman (a thing that is "not Empty") were to exist, it would not exist. You would not be able to interact with it in any way: if it is unseen, it could never change to being seen; if it is seen you would always see it because it could never become unseen. If it were moving, it could never stop moving; if it were unmoving, it would be perceived as rocketing through the universe at high speed because the rest of the universe moves around it. If it exists at a certain point in time, it would only exist at that point in time and no other.

Nagarjuna's project is just demonstrating that in a simple form by creating logical arguments as to why you cannot actually 100% describe reality using words (the big tl;dr is that doing so would require an atman, which cannot exist).

>>22604147
>Really? Spinoza wrote a lot on this topic, and you haven't actually read what he had to say on it. Maybe you should look into what he thought before having an opinion on it?
I wrote an entire paragraph detailing where he goes astray, and rebutted somebody else who tried to argue that he didn't (only to confirm that he did). Maybe read my post before you presume that I have nothing of value to say? Spinoza clearly takes Being to be a genus. It's an infinite genus, sure, but it's still a genus and therefore he fails to recognize the ontological difference.

>>22604147
>"Emptiness" is the nominal form of "Empty". "Empty" is a characteristic used to describe things that exist.
Okay, well, what is empty then? Is it like nothing, non-existence, etc.? I'm confused. I feel like you played a game of bait and switch by referring to "empty" instead of "emptiness" without giving me a clear definition of the quality I was looking for.

If I want to get into buddhism where should I start?

>>22604147
> If an atman (a thing that is "not Empty") were to exist, it would not exist.
a contradiction

>You would not be able to interact with it in any way
You don’t interact with yourself, it’s just what you are naturally and effortlessly, “interaction” presupposes a plurality of parties which is meaningless when speaking about the Self which is not a plurality, this is one of those Buddhist talking points that falls apart when examined.

>if it is unseen, it could never change to being seen
The Self is never an object of itself, It’s naturally self-disclosing without bifurcating into subject and object

> if it is seen you would always see it
The Self is indeed always known and always self-evident

> If it were moving, it could never stop moving; if it were unmoving, it would be perceived as rocketing through the universe at high speed because the rest of the universe moves around it.
The universe is contained in the limitless expanse or space provided by the Self and not vice versa, that’s why the Self is not perceived as moving despite it being beyond movement and change.

>If it exists at a certain point in time, it would only exist at that point in time and no other.
The Self is a timeless reality

>Nagarjuna's project is just demonstrating that in a simple form by creating logical arguments as to why you cannot actually 100% describe reality using words (the big tl;dr is that doing so would require an atman, which cannot exist).
I agree that absolute reality is ineffable, but none of the reasoning you cited actually shows why there cannot be a non-empty Atman.

>>22604217
>Okay, well, what is empty then?
Dependently originated phenomena which exist conventionally

>>22604280
He's talking about the atman/svabhava of external phenomena

>>22604281
I don't understand. How is that empty? I was expecting something like "nothing", but here you gave me a description that sounds like a something.

>>22604309
Phenomena are empty because they do not exist from their own side. There is nothing inherent in any object which defines its existence, the existence of any object is merely a conventional imputation on the part of the perceiving subject.

>>22604363
Okay. So the phenomena are ultimately empty, and there's no logical way to support a "noumena" underlying the phenomena due to the four statements on existence, so we can get rid of trying to look for that too. Is that summary more or less on the right track?

>>22604445
That's accurate

>>22604211
>>22603859
If you are supposing that there is something possibly outside of or bigger or more prior to God in Spinoza, you are fundamentally not grasping the concept. This is what "absolutely infinite" means. Your complaint that it is a genus which much be separated into its species through some outside force is definitionally false given Spinoza's terms.

>>22604287
> He's talking about the atman/svabhava of external phenomena
Okay, so then what he said could be considered relevant when arguing against Buddhists like Abhidharmikas who think phenomenal objects have their own svabhava but it’s not an argument that works against the Vedantic/Upanishadic Atman.

>>22604309
Not that anon, but my understanding is that dependent origination necessarily entails the impossibility of ontology in the classical sense.
Nagarjuna points out, that anything dependent on conditions is empty, lacks an essence.
This is different from basic nihilist relativity. Appearances manifest consistently (not randomly or incoherently) according to conditions, and this entails karma, rebirth, mind, matter, etc. But all these things, and all their conditions, lack any independence, they lack essence.
Since there is no entity or anything that can be found with any essence, any independence, there can be no ground, no root, no foundation, no ‘ultimate reality’, no ultimate ontological nature of things.
When you analyze and dig through appearances (which are mere implications of the conditions dependent-upon which they arise), all you find is more appearances which are mere implications of other appearances and conditions. And even those conditions are mere implications of the appearances that arise dependent upon them.
When you ‘scratch’ the surface and dig deeper, all you find is more surface. But this is not to say there is no surface, that there is ‘no appearance’. But there’s a lack of ultimate foundation, ultimate ground, essence, an ontological nature to things.

>>22604545
Nagarjuna targets the upanishadic atman with his verses on the ‘prior entity’ and other sections.
The key distinction, which is the main sticking point between these Buddhist vs Advaita debates, is that for Buddhism, awareness (or consciousness, whatever designation you want to use) is bilaterally dependent upon appearances, just as stillness and movement are mutually dependent (one could not ‘be’ without the other).
Advaita asserts a unilateral dependence, where appearances depend upon awareness to illumine them, but awareness itself does not depend upon appearances.
For Buddhists, appearances depend upon awareness; and awareness equally depends upon appearance.

>>22604514
I feel like we're talking past each other. Let me try to clarify what I see as the problem, because clearly you and I recognize the philosophical issue at stake. Our clash is over the structure of Spinoza's system and whether he falls into the problem of the ontological difference (taking Being as a being, in this case by taking it as a genus).
>If you are supposing that there is something possibly outside of or bigger or more prior to God in Spinoza, you are fundamentally not grasping the concept.
See, I agree with you that Spinoza thinks there is nothing "bigger than God" in Spinoza's system. However, that's the mistake that I think Spinoza is accidentally making when he states:
>Perfection and imperfection, then, are in reality merely modes of thinking, or notions which we form from a comparison among one another of individuals of the same species; hence I said above (II. Def. vi.), that by reality and perfection I mean the same thing. For we are wont to refer all the individual things in nature to one genus, which is called the highest genus, namely, to the category of Being, whereto absolutely all individuals in nature belong. Thus, in so far as we refer the individuals in nature to this category, and comparing them one with another, find that some possess more of being or reality than others, we, to this extent, say that some are more perfect than others.
Here, in describing how nature "doesn't make mistakes" because there is no end, he describes Being as a "universal genus." In other words, he takes Being as a kind of being, which is a failure to recognize the ontological difference. His system therefore suffers from a flaw that it cannot overcome without going back to the drawing board.
>it is a genus which much be separated into its species through some outside force
See, that's the philosophical issue at stake, and I'm glad that you recognize it. If Being is a genus, then it suffers this problem of differentiation from a "higher" force. This is why Aristotle, Aquinas, and others argue at length that Being cannot be a genus. Unfortunately, Spinoza explicitly defines Being as a genus as I quoted above, so I don't see how to reconcile this problem. Perhaps you have a way of sorting this all out that I'm not seeing?

>>22604503
>>22604549
I guess the real question is how does anything make sense at all? If there's no ground for anything, then how can we prove that there's no ground for anything? The conclusion refutes the premises that we need (e.g. logic, intelligible reality, etc.) to make that conclusion. I can agree with the idea that there is a general tendency to see nothing but "appearances all the way down", but what's at the top or the bottom? Doesn't this persistent condition of appearances imply some kind of "dynamic" stability, and therefore a grounding?

>>22602637
>Buddhist metaphysics does not consider "the universe" to be a thing. We can only speak of "the universe" as a big heap of parts
I think this reduction of wholes to their parts is a bit of an error.
I don’t think any Madhyamika is comfortable reducing any whole to its parts. Rather, wholes and parts are mutually dependent, and neither hold any ontological primacy over the other.
The ‘whole’ is dependent on the parts, and the ‘parts’ likewise dependent on the whole.
Even dependent arising as a principle of the things-dependently-arisen, is likewise dependent upon the things-dependently-arisen for the principle to be possible. So dependent arising is wholly unlike any ‘absolute’ of other mystical traditions. But it is also wholly unlike ontologies of flux, like a Heraclitean view, since it likewise posits a sort of absolute ‘ground’ of reality to flux, change.

>>22604628
>since it likewise posits a sort of absolute ‘ground’ of reality to flux, change.
Meaning even ontologies of flux are positing a ground, an absolute ultimate reality
Which is distinct from the madhyamaka project which does not do this

>>22604576
> Nagarjuna targets the upanishadic atman with his verses on the ‘prior entity’ and other sections.
He doesn’t explicitly mention the Upanishads or say “Upanishadic Atman”, what do you think his specific argument against it is?

I see no evidence that Nagarjuna was aware of or specifically argued against the Upanishadic/Vedantic concept of a partless and self-illuminating Self of pure awareness; in contrast to e.g. the Nyayin Atman which is completely different.

>>22604596
It is more of a deconstructive project.
Us commoners cannot help but conceive of a ‘ground’, it is embedded in our experience like a parasite.
This parasitical conceiving of a ‘ground’ is bound up with taking some aspect of our experience to be independent, namely, the Self.
This independence is gratuitously imputed and conceived, and in the absence of this gratuitous imputation, the entire possibility of ontology collapses like a house of cards.
It’s not so much that this groundlessness is being posited as a thesis of ‘the way things are’, as much as we already by default conceive a ground, and conceive independence. Nagarjuna’s project, is to illuminate how our own innate presuppositions of independence/grounding are self-contradictory according to their own terms and assumptions. He is not making his own thesis. He is going off of our own presuppositions & their internal implications.
This is why he doesn’t ‘need’ a grounding so to speak. Because he ‘has no thesis’. He is starting with your innate thesis, revealing its internal contradiction/absurdity, and leaving it at that. As far as I understand, of course.

>>22604680
> He is starting with your innate thesis, revealing its internal contradiction/absurdity
And what is the purported absurdity/contradiction in there being a self-sufficient ultimate ground of everything?

>>22604680
I just don't get it. His conclusion involves rug-pulling.

>>22602782
The appeal to ineffability (especially as a deflection from logical criticism) is a cop-out, plain and simple.
All experiences are ineffable, including mundane ones like the experience of the appearance redness. That doesn’t mean that the use of language cannot be consistent & non-self-contradictory in describing something ‘ineffable’.
But I think this is a error that some aspiring but confused madhyamikas make, and not an actual error in madhyamika itself.

>>22604581
I'm not an expert in Spinoza so I had to look back at the text, but the issue here is that God (the absolute principle) and Being in Spinoza are not identical - God is the cause of Being, which indeed is taken to be a property i.e a genus. All individual existent things belong to the genus of being for this reason, and God is precisely that encompassing force which determines things into their species.

>PROP. XXV. God is the efficient cause not only of the existence of things, but also of their essence.

God is prior to and the ground of all being because he is self-caused, which means his essence involves existence, which is exclusive only to him:

>PROP. XXIV. The essence of things produced by God does not involve existence.

Notice how in the passage you quoted Being is described as the "highest" genus rather than an infinite genus. we could account for every single existing thing and still not touch the absolute infinitude of God, because he is the source of being in the first place and therefore not contained by a category he is the cause of.

>>22604735
Fair enough
Just keep in mind that it is not denying everyday appearances (which manifest with consistency, actions and their consequences, the ‘laws of logic’, A = A, etc), not about denying experience.
It is a provocation to investigate one’s deepest assumptions *about* appearance/experience. And the supposed ‘result’ of the inquiry doesn’t alter or destroy appearance/experience, nor any of its coherence. But it does undermine specific *assumptions* about it.
In a sense, I guess it is ‘rug-pulling’ to the extent that Nagarjuna is not giving his own alternative thesis for you to consider and adopt (and is thus distinct from garden-variety relativism)… he is just ‘pulling your rug’ by showing you how your own innate thesis internally destroys itself, and provoking you to inquire and see it for yourself. It just so happens that your innate thesis includes the very parameters by which any ontological foundation could possibly be conceived.
So if anything, it is pretty novel, especially for a religion.

>>22604796
>In a sense, I guess it is ‘rug-pulling’ to the extent that Nagarjuna is not giving his own alternative thesis for you to consider and adopt (and is thus distinct from garden-variety relativism)… he is just ‘pulling your rug’ by showing you how your own innate thesis internally destroys itself, and provoking you to inquire and see it for yourself
I mean, in pulling my rug, he also pulls his own rug. So I guess I get my rug back? I don't know how to give a better analogy. It just doesn't make any sense because, logically speaking, to go as far as he went forces us to return to where we started.

>>22604978
What is the same about where you started, versus the end result of the inquiry?

>>22604087
>this doesn’t cease to be true if one accepts anatta or anti-foundationalism or other ship-of-theseus-type identity models
it ceases to be true in the context of Buddhist soteriology which is what Buddhist philosophy is in service of

>>22604662
poos have made so many poomutations of the atman in dialectic with their philosophical opponents that it simply becomes an endless stream of shit, refute one or two or three and you refute them all more or less, only the most scholastic autist could be bothered to be more granular

>>22603101
Gorgeous

>>22604725
Its existence cannot be proven by experience or logic

>>22605008
Well, in order to accept Nagarjuna's conclusion, I have to start with my premises (intelligible, rational reality), as you pointed out. But once I accept Nagarjuna's conclusion, that reality is irrational, then I have to eschew the premises I started with. Mind you, this is not the same as a reductio ad absurdum, because the premise is also the method of proof, if that makes sense. If reality isn't intelligible at all, then we couldn't prove anything about it. It makes no sense to adopt Nagarjuna's conclusion, so we're better off back to where we started (if we're trying to do philosophy).

So, rug pull, but then self rug pull, so I get my rug back.

>>22605323
Nagarjuna never rejects conventional rationality. Dependently originated conventional reality makes logical sense. If he rejected this, it would make no sense for him to write the Mulamadhyamakakarika.

>>22605370
If reality is irrational then what is the point of philosophy? How can we be assured that what we're saying "holds up"?

>>22605281
> And what is the purported absurdity/contradiction in there being a self-sufficient ultimate ground of everything?
> Its existence cannot be proven by experience or logic
That’s not an absurdity or contradiction though anon so the question still hasn’t been answered, the exact same thing can be said about many Buddhist doctrines including karma, rebirth, sunyata, deva realms, hungry ghosts etc.

>>22605323
an argument with a false premise can be valid. if in this case the conclusion "the is no rational grounding of reality" follows from the premise "there is a rational grounding of reality," the argument is valid even though the truth value of one of the propositions is revealed to be false. all this means is that a valid conclusion reached with a false premise does not entail that the whole argument is invalid or false.

additionally, using proof by contradiction, if we take the opposite of our proposition "there is no rational grounding to reality" (which would be "there is a rational grounding to reality") and show that this opposite proposition leads to a contradiction (like the one in question here), we can conclude that our original proposition is valid or true. I have no idea if Nagarjuna's argument really is valid or true, but there you go

>>22605018
> it ceases to be true in the context of Buddhist soteriology which is what Buddhist philosophy is in service of
False, that’s factually untrue. Even if you accept Buddhist models of identity phenomenal qualities are still encountered in empirical experience regardless of any question of who or what kind of identity is experiencing them, the original point or question being talked about was whether samsara is without qualities or not and I simply pointed out that it’s logically absurd and contradictory to say its without qualities.

>>22605027
> refute one or two or three and you refute them all more or less, only the most scholastic autist could be bothered to be more granular
That’s factually untrue, because the arguments against one don’t apply to the others which are different, so if you are criticizing the Nyaya Atman and then try to extend that to the Vedantic Atman even though Vedanta doesn’t accept what you’ve criticized about the Nyaya atman then you are engaging in a fallacious strawman argument plain and simple.

>>22605551
I think the other anon is intentionally distinguishing buddhist soteriology from buddhist philosophy to show that this possibility of phenomenal experience being subverted or overcome cannot be approached from a philosophical direction. it's like how I may be philosophically convinced of platonic arguments for the existence of god but those philosophical arguments cannot in turn convince me to be a Lutheran or a Sunni

>>22605624
>I think the other anon is intentionally distinguishing buddhist soteriology from buddhist philosophy to show that this possibility of phenomenal experience being subverted or overcome cannot be approached from a philosophical direction
I think he was rather just shifting the goalposts, the original anon said that Nirvana was Samsara without qualities, I pointed out that by its very nature all phenomenal and bodily experience involves phenomenal qualities and that this never ceases to be true and then the second anon came and tried to shift the goalposts by saying "well uh... we aren't saying that there is an Atman behind this that is experiencing it" and I replied by saying that this response is basically a non-sequitur because I was only talking about the way in which phenomenal experience/knowledge takes place, i.e. bodily/phenomenal experience invariably involves knowledge of qualities irrespective of one's position on Atman or the absence thereof.

I also don't agree that the question of phenomenal experience cannot be approached from a philosophical direction, by talking about it as a hypothetical one is doing exactly that, if you are talking about something that words cannot fully describe and accordingly make use of metaphors and symbolism to talk about it that's still a kind of philosophical approach.

>>22605716
I believe the claim w/r/t buddhist soteriology is that yes experience of qualities is inescapable from our side as conscious beings but that there can be samsara without qualities necessarily means going beyond given experience or at least realizing some truth that is given through qualitative experience but not gasped through qualitative experience, or at least not grasped in the way we grasp everything else given by qualitative experience. it seems to me that this is a matter of faith or spiritual experience or etc because you are exactly correct that from the standpoint of phenomenology there is no such thing as experience without qualities. thinking again here of the One in plotinus, which transcends all possible experience but can be "realized" or "attained" through henosis. i shall stop arguing for other anons though, i'm enjoying this thread too much

>>22605551
>logically absurd and contradictory to say its without qualities
If it were a chair or something sure, but it's not. There is no way to get to it short of getting it, because if there were we'd have gotten there by now and there'd be no debate whatsoever, you'd just follow the map to the destination and arrive. Buddhism goes to great lengths to avoid boxing in its most final "idea" and if it were in fact as mapped out as a chair it would suffer the same fate as the chair does in Buddhism.
>>22605560
they share many of the same faults it is simply not worth the effort for the non-scholastic to refute variations of the same wrong idea when you can kill the roots and let the branches crack off.
>>22605716
>if you are talking about something that words cannot fully describe and accordingly make use of metaphors and symbolism to talk about it that's still a kind of philosophical approach
that is indeed a philosophical approach but one that cannot satisfy the sort of pseudo-scientific architectonic phenomenology you were looking for where each thing is neatly described such that we can enjoy our walking tour of them and finally get to the summit, no more than we can walk to the moon if we are pointed at it.
>>22605772
>the One in plotinus, which transcends all possible experience but can be "realized" or "attained" through henosis
yes the neoplats had all kinds of arguments and theoretical points but also believed in their equivalent of voudou or vajrayana where you embody the deity in yourself for which every tract and treatise they wrote themselves was ultimately understood as a secondary source... not unlike saying "Maitreya" the future Buddha wrote the sutra and not you, a mere man

>>22605886
>If it were a chair or something sure, but it's not.
Why would you admit that about the chair but not about other phenomenal experiences or phenomenal experiences in general? Just as it's absurd to say that the experience of a chair lacks qualities, it's equally absurd to say that about phenomenal experience in general which has even more self-evidently present qualities than the chair or its experience does.

>they share many of the same faults
No, they don't, that's false. If you think so then you should list said faults instead of obfuscating and coping

>it is simply not worth the effort for the non-scholastic to refute variations of the same wrong idea when you can kill the roots and let the branches crack off.
1) It's the same idea in name only
2) Nothing that Buddhists say and no argument they have ever raised has ever harmed the root of the idea of Atman, saying that attacking the Nyaya Atman somehow attacks the root of the Vedantic Atman is just engaging in blatant strawman fallacies.

>>22605924
I think you are either confused or dishonest. You appear to be asking for nirvana/samsara to be explained as if they were concrete entities that could be experienced by a permanent observer, such as chairs are, and your interest in defending the dogmatic atman was always obvious through all of this, though it has since become explicit. The root idea of the atman was attacked in the earliest Buddhist literature, and must have been quite successful for there to be so many variants authored in attempt to escape the critique. And meanwhile nirvana/samara are not treated as the usual objects of experience as mediated through causal and psychological factors. So we cannot expect Buddhism to explain what qualities there are for the permanent observer to experience in a state that is supposed to have overcome such duality, except by faith in the soteriology, for which the philosophical demolition of false ideas was only preparatory.

>>22604211
>I wrote an entire paragraph
Spinoza wrote seven books.

>>22604309
Correct. Buddhists aren't denying that things exist, they're just arguing about what it means for a thing to exist. Buddhists argue that things exist without an atman, for the reasons outlined. This state of existing without an atman is referred to as "Empty" for historical reasons.

>>22604287
It's Guenonfag, he's mentally ill and knows all of this. He wants to advocate for Advaita Vedanta, he's not actually interested in talking about Buddhism.

>>22605440
We can't. The point of Buddhism isn't to describe reality with 100% accuracy, it's to achieve nirvana.

>>22605957
>I think you are either confused or dishonest. You appear to be asking for nirvana/samsara to be explained as if they were concrete entities that could be experienced by a permanent observer
No I'm not, you seem very confused. Another poster said that "Nagarjuna discovered that Nirvana is Samsara without qualities", I was only asking them to explain the meaning of this statement and explain why it's not illogical/absurd, and I was transparent that I was seeking for that anon to simply back up and explain their own statement. If they cannot even explain it in a way that isn't obviously absurd and irrational then it doesn't sound like much of a "discovery". Then when that anon stopped trying to defend his own idea you jumped in but all you did was try to shift the goalposts into a point about Atman without explaining why the original statement is actually not absurd/irrational.

>The root idea of the atman was attacked in the earliest Buddhist literature,
There is not really one "pan-Atman idea" of Atman because it can mean totally different things in different schools, and the Buddhists don't have any argument that applies to the "root idea" or base of the Upanishadic/Vedantic idea of Atman. If anything the root of all Indian Atman notions would arguably be the Upanishadic idea of Atman which predates the formal schools but the Buddhists don't really have any argument that refutes or harms the Upanishadic idea of Atman. You are too scared to even post what you think the argument that refutes the Upanishadic Atman is in this thread and you just keep repeating this made-up myth that it has been addressed already yet you are incapable of explaining how/why, i.e. you are just engaged in extended coping. Your egoism won't let you concede that the person you are arguing with is correct but you have no examples that would support your claim so you are caught in this trap that forces you to reply with more vague hand-waving and non-sequiturs every time, kek.

>and must have been quite successful for there to be so many variants authored in attempt to escape the critique.
The Indian schools developed their idea of Atman not in response to Buddhism but rather as a natural consequences and extension of their starting axioms or as part of their attempt to understand scripture, it has nothing to do with Buddhism. When Vedantins say that the Atman is partless, omnipresent, unconditioned etc it's based on taking scriptural statements about the Atman as literally true in their surface meaning, and these scriptural passages predates Buddha's life.

>And meanwhile nirvana/samara are not treated as the usual objects of experience
By Buddhists own admission though when duality has been overcome by realization one can still talk with other people etc, which is made possible only through the knowledge of qualities of sounds/sight/etc, so on a basic epistemic and non-sectarian level it just makes no sense logically to say samsara lacks qualities

>>22606024
>all you did was try to shift the goalposts into a point about Atman without explaining why the original statement is actually not absurd/irrational.
because I knew you were playing dumb with regard to hiding your own priors, and lo and behold, here you are, ready to defend hindu orthodoxy... it is only an absurd consequence for someone looking at it from the perspective of the imagined permanent observer, and such a concept is already done away with by the point Nagarjuna or other Buddhists are talking about the nonduality of nirvana/samsara
>it has nothing to do with Buddhism
then why did you feel compelled to intervene in the thread? could it be that Buddhism lives rent-free in hindu theology? I would have more respect for you if you would acknowledge your own system does the same thing in treating turgid theological tracts as less valuable in the grand scheme of things than tripping beneath trees.

>>22606065
>it is only an absurd consequence for someone looking at it from the perspective of the imagined permanent observer, and such a concept is already done away with by the point Nagarjuna or other Buddhists are talking about the nonduality of nirvana/samsara
No that's false, this is more transparently fallacious goal-post shifting by you, because even if you reject that there is a permanent observer/consciousness and hold instead that there is only a flux of empty/dependent transient aggregates, consciousness or the mind still experiences qualities in the form of sight, sound, touch, sadness, heat, hunger, nausea etc either way regardless in either model/scenario, so just because you reject a permanent observer doesn't meant that it's no longer self-evidently absurd and irrational to say that samsara or samsaric experiences lacks qualities, because even in a Buddhist model with anatta and flux the mind still obviously experiences qualities every day.

>>it has nothing to do with Buddhism
>then why did you feel compelled to intervene in the thread?
Because I find it amusing to subject Buddhists to their own prasangika method of simply pointing out the inherent problems and contradictions in the things which they themselves advocate as doctrine and to watch them flip out in response. It's quite easy to collapse the façade of self-assuredness with a few well-placed critical questions.

>>22606097
>even in a Buddhist model with anatta and flux the mind still obviously experiences qualities every day
who said otherwise? But the buddhist model to describe conventional experience does not "describe" the ultimate soteriological goal, not with the sort of medical exactitude you are demanding, an exactitude which your own system certainly lacks in its entire foundational premise being "the Vedas say x," for what logic is there in a book which has no human author?

>>22605539
You try to use reductio ad absurdum to explain Brahman, but can it be grasped a priori through analysis of reality? Why should there be a noumena?

>>22606228
Also, isn’t Vedanta basically Hindu pilpul? Why the hell are you talking about it here?

>>22606228
Actually, don’t answer that, you’ll just start spouting shit and ruin the otherwise cordial thread.
>>22602935
Thanks for explaining it more cleanly than I did befor.

>>22606125
> who said otherwise?
The anon who said that Nagarjuna “discovered that Nirvana is Samsara without qualities” said otherwise apparently, that’s the only reason I’m posting about this at all, because I was asking them to explain further and to explain how that can be reconciled with the minds experience of qualities…. *in samsara*

>But the buddhist model to describe conventional experience does not "describe" the ultimate soteriological goal
That has nothing to do with my question for the original anon who made the claim

> an exactitude which your own system certainly lacks in its entire foundational premise being "the Vedas say x,"
That’s an exact statement and not an inexact one, Buddhism takes the purported supersensuous insight of Buddha as its basis in a similar way that is just a placeholder for revealed scripture.

>>22606279
I was planning to give a more flowery response tonight, but the other nice anon basically summed up what I meant well in that samsara without qualities is a soreriological phrase to draw your thoughts to past samsara caused attachment. If you want a proper philosophical defense of the school then you could do as I said and attentively read some texts.

>>22606228
> You try to use reductio ad absurdum to explain Brahman
I wasn’t doing that, I’m not sure why you thought I was. Brahman is accepted on a scriptural basis, there are arguments that can be and are made by Vedantists as to why non-Vedantic models of reality contain some flaw/hole/contradiction that Vedanta doesn’t, but they don’t presumptuously try to claim that everything else has been infallibly refuted and that Brahman has been proven true by virtue of these arguments. Any sort of logical argument is optional and not taken as complete or infallible proof of Brahman, and Vedanta rejects the idea that complete knowledge of Absolute reality can be arrived at through logical proofs.

>but can it be grasped a priori through analysis of reality?
the position of AV is that the self-evident and self-revealing non-conceptual awareness which is at the core of all experience and which is present simultaneously with the mind having conceptual thought is Brahman knowing Itself or being disclosed to Itself in a way that transcends and doesn’t involve the subjective-object dichotomy, so Brahman is always known always by every sentient thing (i.e. their innermost awareness is Brahman knowing Itself), however their minds can be confused about this and arrive at the wrong conclusion about reality due to various reasons, even though the pristine awareness illuminating that mind having misconceptions is nothing other than the self-illuminating and unconditioned Absolute appearing in conjunction with one of its created illusory images.

>Why should there be a noumena?
A regress argument for why has already been posted in this thread. I don’t think this is an infallible proof but just that it indicates what is more likely to be true.
>>22606241
> Also, isn’t Vedanta basically Hindu pilpul?
No, its one of the six major darshanas and one of the most influential Hindu philosophies.

>Why the hell are you talking about it here?
Because people asked me about it. I was just critiquing the foolish claim that Nagarjuna refuted all non-empty models of reality without going my intent being to go into detail about Vedanta.

>>22606394
Can't you read? I told you that I changed my mind since you will just spout trash and remain ignorant of your enemies.

>>22606373
>that samsara without qualities is a soreriological phrase to draw your thoughts to past samsara caused attachment.
So samsara isn't actually without qualities and Nagarjuna doesn't actually mean that literally, I'm glad we cleared that up.

>>22606475
>samsara isn't actually without qualities
In your phenomenological framework, but Nagarjuna is ultimately closer to a soteriological view than the modern logical one, as posited by C. W. Huntington.

>>22606495
>In your phenomenological framework, but Nagarjuna is ultimately closer to a soteriological view
Even in a soteriological framework qualities are still experienced as belonging to samsara or as being a basic component of samsara, centering your perspective around liberation does not make this cease to be true.

>>22606514
As I said, you're right with your definitions according to your framework but Madhyamaka does not really consider this an issue since one who has attained buddha state is free from the cycle of rebirth and thus is essentially considered spiritually unaffected by phenomena. Gotama Buddha got sick and died but was still enlightened and free. Do you get what I mean? Its like a depressed existentialist saying no experience matters since it all vanishes once you die so that it never existed anyways, but better. We basically just don't agree on a certain interpretation. I can see where you come from but I hope you also understand what I mean.

>>22606562
>As I said, you're right with your definitions according to your framework but Madhyamaka does not really consider this an issue since one who has attained buddha state is free from the cycle of rebirth and thus is essentially considered spiritually unaffected by phenomena. Gotama Buddha got sick and died but was still enlightened and free.
That doesn't mean that samsara lacks qualities though, since even if an enlightened person is spiritually unaffected by things they still have empirical knowledge of qualities like sound and sight, otherwise it would have been impossible for Buddha to teach any of his disciples because he would not be able to hear their questions and thus provide relevant answers to those questions.

>>22606573
Nagarjuna doesn't deny that conditional phenomena exist, but once you achieve nirvana you are free from its qualities. You can interact and act in it without issue while spiritually free. That's how the previous statement becomes clearer after you reflect on it. One last time, I get how this can feel like a contradiction of terms but such is the middle path.

>>22606609
>Nagarjuna doesn't deny that conditional phenomena exist, but once you achieve nirvana you are free from its qualities.
What does "you" mean in the context of your answer and how is it still "you" while being free from or of samsaric/conditioned qualities?

Emptiness is full of it

>>22606279
>The anon who said that Nagarjuna “discovered that Nirvana is Samsara without qualities” said otherwise apparently, that’s the only reason I’m posting about this at all, because I was asking them to explain further and to explain how that can be reconciled with the minds experience of qualities…. *in samsara*
It's not verbiage I would use but the principle is the same as what I have been saying—the philosophical side is dealing with qualities and entities and minds and reasoning and the soteriological side is dealing with the cessation of those "things" insofar as we know of them as "things," which for the buddhist means a sort of provisional designation, relativity of meaning, interdependence, dependent origination etc. all to say there's nothing in the chair that self-establishes it for you as a chair for more than a moment. Where you see garbage, a raccoon sees a feast, but that's a problem between you and the raccoon and says nothing absolute unless you want to start pretending there are different atmans at work here, which is exactly the trap to be avoided

>>22605992
>Spinoza wrote seven books.
Nobody cares. He committed the fallacy of the ontological difference, and I demonstrated in detail how he did it. The fact that you can't say anything about the problem except make a halfwitted comeback shows a lot about your own (lack of) understanding.

>>22606688
Because of the doctrine of anatta , the Buddhists deny that a fundamental “you” like the Atman exists.

>>22605548
Well, that's the thing. I would say it's both not valid and unsound. It's not valid because the premise is the proofing method (a rational reality provides the basis for logic), and it's unsound because we use logic to disprove logic (an irrational reality makes logic baseless). That would be the contradiction that you're looking for, I think.

>>22607574
>Because of the doctrine of anatta , the Buddhists deny that a fundamental “you” like the Atman exists.
I know, that's why I asked what he meant by "you", it's inconsistent with other typical Buddhist teachings to speak of a "you" that is free from samsaric qualities as he spoke about

>>22606801
>all to say there's nothing in the chair that self-establishes it for you as a chair for more than a moment.
So? Even if you accept dependent origination, interdependence etc, phenomenal objects still obviously have qualities which are empirically experienced, whatever you mentally tell yourself about the chairs identity or lack thereof does absolutely nothing to change this.

>>22607924
I just used “you” since it fit what I wanted to see, I’m not autistic enough to always talk using strict philosophical language that fits what Nagarjuna said. No need to worry about the word.

>>22607962
*what I wanted to say
Sorry. Also I was the guy who you replied to.

>>22601775
Nagarjuna is a fraud yes, but Emptiness is not part of the buddha's teaching in the first place.

>>22607931
>whatever you mentally tell yourself about the chairs identity or lack thereof does absolutely nothing to change this
there are no stakes in chair example unless one has a compulsive attraction to furniture, but again, the conceptual framework(s) advanced by Buddhist philosophy are in the service of Buddhist soteriology, and therefore when we find that no object, experience, phenomenon, conception, or entity has any sort of duration, calmness, quietude, etc. (and the non-Buddhists cannot show otherwise) they are then seen as they really are, as empty, non-dual, quiescent, etc. That is the faith component and requires one to have either belief in the preparatory philosophy or a religious experience bypassing it. You however persist in asserting that everything begins and ends with the experience of the qualities of objects (which you don't actually believe anyway since you are an apologist for Hindu orthodoxy), a decidedly irreligious perspective which strictly limits itself to human measurement of things.

>>22607931
Qualities are only imputed on objects, experience itself doesn't have qualities

>>22607712
bump

>>22605440
retroactively affirmed and explained in depth by the primordial wisdom of Guenon (pbuh)

>>22609399
Guenon was retroactively debunked by Heidegger

>>22607924
You throw the raft away after you reach the other shore.

>>22608064
Good post. Guenon's refutation status: retroactive.

>>22601739
Robinson was already refuted on another madhyamaka thread, hes so mediocre on his arguments he confuses the chapters of the karika and has a wrong understanding of central points of nagarjunas argumentation like the concept of space/akasha

>>22602700
Logic is useful for the relative aspect of truth, in that sense he's really close to Wittgenstein notion of logic, logic should free yourself from the need of logic

>>22602412
This is wrong, Spinoza don't see Being as genus but as potency, your whole "refutation" is based on a poir understanding of Spinoza's system

>>22609888
My ESL friend, Spinoza literally calls it a genus at one point. Besides, quibbling over the terminology is a waste of time and obscures what Spinoza takes Being to be: a kind of being.

>>22609905
My ESL friend, Spinoza literally calls it a genus at one point. Besides, quibbling over the terminology is a waste of time and obscures what Spinoza takes Being to be: a kind of being.

>>22609888
wdym by the relative aspect of truth? what lies beyond relativity? how does Wittgenstein enter the picture?

>>22609421
Heidegger was debunked by his coomer craving for jewesses

>>22609946
Nothing lies beyond reality, reality has a relative and an absolute aspect, logic can help you traverse the relative aspect of reality and free you from the needs if logical argumentation, Wittgenstein used the same idea of the buddhist raft you have to use to then abandon, but with a stair instead

>>22604280
You interact with yourself all the time, your whole life is a process of the differentninteractions of every part of yourself, now if you wanna think that there's something partless and unmoving then that thing can't interact with that which is moving and made of parts, which show us that the atman can't exist witjin us since we indeed interact with life

>>22609946
Being is not a kind of being, being is the sum of all the potential form of infinite bodies,the movementor actuality of the infinite, you're trying to use a bizarre shallow form of aristotelian metaphysics to explain Spinozza

>>22609421
the distinction between the two was retroactively exposed to be complementary aspects of non-dual duginism, which is itself a retroactive refutation on the part of Guenon (pbuh)

>>22604229
vasabandhu

Instead of circlejerking like the useless intellectuals have been doing for 2500 years, you could actually learn buddhism.

>the Buddha, instead of giving a definition of becoming (bhava) in response to this question, simply notes that becoming occurs on three levels. Nowhere in the suttas does he define the term becoming, but a survey of how he uses the term in different contexts suggests that it means a sense of identity in a particular world of experience: your sense of what you are, focused on a particular desire, in your personal sense of the world as related to that desire. In other words, it is both a psychological and a cosmological concept. For more on this topic, see The Paradox of Becoming, Introduction and Chapter One.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/paradoxofbecoming.pdf


>>22602412
>>Nope, Spinoza doesn't solve anything. This is ultimately the oldest, hardest, yet most noble question in philosophy: what is Being,
already solved by the buddha:


Then Ven. Radha went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, having bowed down to him sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One: "'A being,' lord. 'A being,' it's said. To what extent is one said to be 'a being'?"

"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for form, Radha: when one is caught up[1] there, tied up[2] there, one is said to be 'a being.'[3]

"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for feeling... perception... fabrications...

"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for consciousness, Radha: when one is caught up there, tied up there, one is said to be 'a being.'

"Just as when boys or girls are playing with little sand castles:[4] as long as they are not free from passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, & craving for those little sand castles, that's how long they have fun with those sand castles, enjoy them, treasure them, feel possessive of them. But when they become free from passion, desire, love, thirst, fever, & craving for those little sand castles, then they smash them, scatter them, demolish them with their hands or feet and make them unfit for play.

"In the same way, Radha, you too should smash, scatter, & demolish form, and make it unfit for play. Practice for the ending of craving for form.

"You should smash, scatter, & demolish feeling, and make it unfit for play. Practice for the ending of craving for feeling.

"You should smash, scatter, & demolish perception, and make it unfit for play. Practice for the ending of craving for perception.

"You should smash, scatter, & demolish fabrications, and make them unfit for play. Practice for the ending of craving for fabrications.

"You should smash, scatter, & demolish consciousness and make it unfit for play. Practice for the ending of craving for consciousness — for the ending of craving, Radha, is Unbinding."

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn23/sn23.002.than.html

>>22602637
>He provides irrefutable arguments against the existence of atmans
Not positing anything here, but I'm curious how Madhyamaka and its descendants tackle the binding problem and reflective awareness (you don't remember seeing an apple, you remember you-seeing-the-apple)

>>22603720
What I don't understand about philosophy is why even presuppose the validity of logic, which your entire argument is built upon. Why presuppose the law of noncontradiction.

>>22610837
>Why presuppose the law of noncontradiction
Not her, but there is a huge corpus of east Asian Mahayana Buddhism that does posit true contradictions and ineffability as a valid alternative to the tetralemma (yes, no, both yes and no, neither yes nor no) using non-classical, paraconsistent logic of a type that wasn't developed in the West until much later. Huayan and the lineages that eventually led to Zen would be a good example and the developments they introduced are really fascinating. Interestingly this view is rejected by traditional Tibetan Buddhism, as, despite everything, Nagarjuna and his successors stop just short of accepting true contradictions as a possibility.

>>22606024
>but the Buddhists don't really have any argument that refutes or harms the Upanishadic idea of Atman
I've hard this before, as well as the historical Buddha's original doctrine being much closer to the Upanishads than modern practicioners would be comfortable with. Do you have some material that expands on either?

>>22610836
Reflective awareness is a form of conventional truth, something you need to articulate in your mind to make sense of the world, but it has no independent existence

>>22610802
Based and dharmapilled

>>22610759
>Being is the sum of beings including every possible iteration of their beingness
Warmer but still no dice.
>you're trying to use a bizarre shallow form of aristotelian metaphysics to explain Spinozza
kek, where do you think Spinoza got his (sloppily-used) terminology from?

>>22610802
>"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for form, Radha: when one is caught up[1] there, tied up[2] there, one is said to be 'a being.'[3]
Wait, so does this mean that things like rocks and chairs are conscious? They have a form. Is it due to them "craving" their form? Or are they actually not beings at all, and only conscious things are beings?

>>22611034
>>Wait, so does this mean that things like rocks and chairs are conscious? They have a form.
No on the contrary. Only stuff with conciseness can suffer and be ''a being''. So plants and rocks don't suffer. Form is the stuff composed of the 4 elements, earth, wind, water, fire. it's the endpoint of the senses, ie the objects of the senses.
Form has to be understood like this:
>"Thus, monks, any form whatsoever that is past, future, or present; internal or external; blatant or subtle; common or sublime; far or near: every form is to be seen as it actually is with right discernment as: 'This is not mine. This is not my self. This is not what I am.'

>"Monk, the four great existents (earth, water, fire, & wind) are the cause, the four great existents the condition, for the delineation of the aggregate of form.


>The five khandhas are bundles or piles of form, feeling, perception, fabrications, and consciousness. None of the texts explain why the Buddha used the word khandha to describe these things. The meaning of "tree trunk" may be relevant to the pervasive fire imagery in the canon — nibbāna being extinguishing of the fires of passion, aversion, and delusion — but none of the texts explicitly make this connection. The common and explicit image is of the khandhas as burdensome (§22). We can think of them as piles of bricks we carry on our shoulders. However, these piles are best understood, not as objects, but as activities, for an important passage (§7) defines them in terms of their functions. Form — which covers physical phenomena of all sorts, both within and without the body — wears down or "de-forms." Feeling feels pleasure, pain, and neither pleasure nor pain. Perception labels or identifies objects. Consciousness cognizes the six senses (counting the intellect as the sixth) along with their objects. Of the five khandhas, fabrication is the most complex. Passages in the canon define it as intention, but it includes a wide variety of activities, such as attention, evaluation (§14), and all the active processes of the mind. It is also the most fundamental khandha, for its intentional activity underlies the experience of form, feeling, etc., in the present moment.
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/khandha.html

>>22610759
Being can't be a mere potential. A mere potential is nothing.

anatta is like temperature: when heat disappears, there is only cold left. So when all the hindrances disappears, right knowledge pops up and there is no longer hatred, delusion nor love.

It's super simple and yet madhyamaka idiots can't even understand this kek

Scooobidooooo

So there's no need for an ''emptiness'' when heat leaves and cold is just what remains.

>>22610836
>Binding Problem
Very early Buddhist thinkers came up with theories of the mind as part of the Abhidhamma project. The big tl;dr is that Buddhist theories of the mind posit that the mind is made up of parts. Sensory data is received, and then various parts organize it, some of which end up categorizing things. So, you don't "see a chair", you see "assorted phenomena" that gets processed and matches an existing template of "a chair". The fact that people have to be taught things instead of just knowing them is an argument in favor of Emptiness.

This also answers the reflexive awareness bit: part A is aware of part B, and part A is aware of that, and part B is aware of that, etc. Many have compared Madhyamaka, and Madhyamaka influence, to phenomenology for that reason.

>>22610850
>Do you have some material that expands on either?
No, because there's none. The Buddha spent 40 years talking about how atmans are incoherent and don't exist. The oldest parts of the Pali Canon are about this. He wasn't a time traveler stealing from Shankara.

If the problem is attachment doesn't that mean you're supposed to care about nothing?
For example right now I suffer because no gf. But if I stop caring I'll just become an empty shell with no desire for human connection and love.

>>22612613
You can love without attachment

>>22612700
how

>>22612613
You suffer because you think thoughts such as "I will stop suffering only when I have gf", or generally only when your experience meets certain criteria. Suffering is merely what these thoughts feel like. And they can be very subtle and incessant. Don't try to suppress thoughts or think happy thoughts, that's just the same movement e.g. "I will stop suffering only if I can stop thinking or can think only happy thoughts". When thoughts such as "I am (suffering, etc)" do not arise, suffering also does not arise. If you intuitively realize this then the thoughts will naturally begin to subside and clear out.
Then the desire for human connection and love comes from sharing unconditional contentment/love instead of from trying to alleviate your suffering/dissatisfaction. You can still have preferences, interests, desires, cares etc, but your contentment will no longer depend on anything.
I won't be able to reply for about 10 hours but hopefully other anons can answer questions you or others might have until then.

>>22612700
>>You can love without attachment
you can't. Beyond love comes equanimity and you never come back to love/hatred

>>22613703
Through virtuous desire to aid others like the Bodhisattvas

Have there ever been any substantial criticisms of Buddhism that debilitate its core doctrine or assumptions, either from their Hindu contemporaries or Abrahamists?
I feel like the idea that humans only achieve buddha-hood after millions of lifetimes of rebirth isnt really tenable when human beings have only been around for 1 million years or so

>>22614526
The best hindus and Abrahamists can do is criticize Mahayana, Vajrayana, Zen, Dzogchen because they share the same basis as the other religions, ie made-up worship and made-up rituals, and babbling about the true nature of things, ie non-duality.
Buddhism and jainism have a practice which is too hardcore for any religious guy to even try for a few days, let alone understand. On the theoretical side, the buddhist theory either frustrates them or fries their brains since all religious people want is to expand their hubris talking about the universe and the true nature of things, whereas buddhism nips this thing in the bud and instead focuses on meditation.
Generally they conflate Mahayana with Buddhism precisely because mahayana followers are the only one larping as buddhist and craving for intellectualism.
And the theoretical side of jainism is too unknown; and outside of India, nobody cares about the jains because they are not markeatable, the place is already taken by hinduism and mahayana, and their practice is just insane to the average western woman who just wants to larp and reads a few feel good books.

>>22614579
>Zen
>Religion
right, the branch of buddhism that is completely stripped down of religious tenets is also the most "religious"

>>22614641
>completely stripped down of religious tenets
only the amerishart localizations are

>>22614641
Ch'an/Zen is very religious. The lineage of patriarchs who received mind-to-mind transmission is considered immensely important. In fact, even within Zen, you will find complex arguments about the legitimacy of Northern vs. Southern schools after Huineng died.

>>22601710
Not without refutation; emptiness must have motion for us to grasp it yet its motion can only tell us what it is not, including itself.

>>22601710
>Jumps in Logic
>Philosophy
hahahaha that was a good one anon

>>22614526
>that debilitate its core doctrine or assumptions
Tilakkhana is essential to Buddhism and is irrefutable. No self/soul/I/me entity can be found in the body, mind, world, skandhas etc (anatta); when we erroneously believe ourselves to be a subject entity somewhere in those, then necessarily arises what seems like discrete objects ("objects" includes thoughts, experiences etc). These apparent objects are impermanent (anicca) and therefore unsatisfying. When our contentment depends on the absence or presence of certain objects it is then conditioned by them (dukkha). This is all demonstrably true.
>I feel like the idea that humans only achieve buddha-hood after millions of lifetimes of rebirth
Stream-entry at least is certainly possible in this lifetime with much less time and dedication/renunciation needed than most people would assume. Schools and texts that say that awakening, or even just jhana, is absurdly rare or slow are being elitist and/or coping for their incompetency and ignorance.

Yeah the official minimal length to reach full entanglement is 2 weeks with satipatthana.

>>22613877
Based

>>22611416
Potency in Spiniza is not the potentiality of Aristotle

>>22611693
Emptiness is the fact that heatbis not a thing on itself but exist as a contrast to cold, both of them are interdependent, heat is empty of any substance that make it exist outside of this interdependence with coldness

>>22612613
>empty shell with no desire for human connection and love.
But you will stop caring about that. That's what 'stop caring' is. You want to lose a value but also keep that value. Experience something while also not experiencing it, having your cake and eating it too etc etc.
Only when the valuation of 'veing more than an empty shell with no desires' has disappeared have you stopped caring, but you've alsoncome closer to death. There's no way around it, no matter what Buddhist larpers say.

>>22617783
How are they different, then? It's not "Aristotle's" potentiality. He may have been the first to give it a name, but these ideas strike close to the heart of reality itself.

>>22617855
literal nihilism

how do you guys even know all of that, what a waste of life

>>22617892
Yes. If you want to escape all suffering, you'll have to adopt literal nihilism. If you want to value anything, you'll have to accept the potential suffering of not having it. It's really quite simple.

>>22617975
Buddhism explicitly rejects nihilism

>>22617906
it's the only way to get out of samsara, serious business

>>22617892
>>22617975
If the Buddha didn't value or care about anything, then why did he bother to teach? Why did he denounce certain behaviors? If he positively valued teaching, would he suffer if he became unable to teach?
Nihilism is essentially the view, belief, or identity "I know I exist and I know everything is valueless etc". The Buddha and Nagarjuna's point is to ultimately sever the attachment to this "I know". This inevitably cuts down even the belief "I exist" which is really "I know I exist". Which after liberation is not then "I don't exist" which is really "I know I don't exist", nor is it "I don't know if I exist or not" which is really "I know I don't know if I exist or not", and so on. Nirvana is the cessation of this "I know" by realization of its emptiness. It can seem like nihilism when the mind still clings to concepts and frameworks, but when the mind stops clinging and rejecting altogether things can then be valued without causing suffering.

"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form" as the Heart Sutra says. Nihilism may occur if you try to realize the emptiness of form. Nirvana is when form realizes the emptiness of you.

Brainlet here. Any educated Buddhists or Advaitins (or hell, even Christian phenomenologists) lurking this thread?
Here's where I'm at as far as a personal philosophy built from direct experience and deduction only.
>From a phenomenological standpoint, there is no reason to believe that what one experiences and what one is are identical. What one experiences includes all thoughts, all emotions, all sensations, all senses of identity and self, all suffering, all phenomena. The only thing that can truly be said to be "oneself" is the awareness which functions as a container or vessel for the phenomena; for some unknown reason each of us has become incarnate in this world of phenomena (or experiences each individual stream of phenomena) as the awareness they are and not any other. Bereft of phenomena to fill it, the awareness is empty, without qualities except the individuation it has from other awarenesses, as in unconsciousness, deep sleep, or death. There is thus no reason to attempt to "end" suffering as what suffers is not and never was "you." There is also no reason to believe thoughts are actively thought by the self as the experience of thinking them, which may have its source elsewhere much as a film is played on a screen, is impossible to differentiate from the act of thinking them.
Obviously we have to jump from simply experiencing things to actually thinking at some point or no philosophy is tenable, but try as I might I can't seem to come up with an argument that makes thought possible. The experience of being aware of being aware seems to be both phenomena and awareness at the same time, but I can't come up with any solid conclusions to draw from that fact.
Does someone like Nagarjuna or Shankara ever write about this situation? I've heard Hegel does but I haven't reached that far in my own reading yet.

>>22620242
>Does someone like Nagarjuna or Shankara ever write about this situation?
Shankara writes briefly about it in Kena Upanishad Bhashya 1.1

He would disagree with your contention that "the experience of perceiving X is the same as self-consciously doing X" however because he would point out that whatever is observed as an object cannot reasonably characterize the subject/knower who is not an object

>>22620280
>He would disagree with your contention that "the experience of perceiving X is the same as self-consciously doing X"
My issue is that there's no way to prove they're the same, not that they are, bringing to question whether thinking at all is actually possible.

>>22620286
>My issue is that there's no way to prove they're the same
I don't think they are the same, but what does it matter? Or rather why do you consider this an issue?

>bringing to question whether thinking at all is actually possible.
I think it's self-evident that thinking is possible and indeed occurs, but the question is whether one's sentience directs the mind's thoughts like a driver or whether the mind is on autopilot and sentience/awareness is just passive and illuminates the mind.

>>22620300
My whole issue is that if you can't tell the difference between thinking like you're actively doing something and experiencing thoughts like you're a container passively being filled with phenomena, then what's the use in attempting to formulate any system of philosophy at all? Why even care about concepts like suffering or nirvana or enlightenment or Brahman or whatever if none of it applies to the only thing that can definitively be said to be "you," your awareness?

>>22620312
>My whole issue is that if you can't tell the difference between thinking like you're actively doing something and experiencing thoughts like you're a container passively being filled with phenomena, then what's the use in attempting to formulate any system of philosophy at all?
The use in studying philosophy or spiritual teachings in such a scenario is that it can alleviate the psychological, spiritual and/or emotional ills that trouble man.

>Why even care about concepts like suffering or nirvana or enlightenment or Brahman or whatever if none of it applies to the only thing that can definitively be said to be "you," your awareness?
Because people in their normal unenlightened state suffer from anxiety, fear, unhappiness etc due to misidentifying their Self with non-Self and vice-versa and the extended consequences of this, and until one personally uproots this error themselves their mind will continue to suffer these negative repercussions. If you understand at a purely verbal and theoretical level that the true Self is unaffected that doesn't change anything until you actually do the 'work' of spiritual realization yourself and realize it as true intuitively within your own experience in a way that sticks.

>>22620312
Because from the perspective of deluded sentient beings we all experience suffering. Just telling yourself "this isn't real, this isn't me" doesn't end the experience of suffering, it's just more conceptual delusion.

>>22601710
Is he the guy who just names any idea and then denies all four logical possibilities as though he's making an argument or saying something profound?
>it's not that
>it's not not that
>it's not both that and not that
>it's not neither that nor not that
wow deep bro wow like how did you do that bro? Like wowww deeeeeeep broooo

>>22602457
>1. There is X
>2. There is not X
>3. There is both X and not-X
>4. There is neither X nor not-X
Imagine thinking this constitutes an argument. It's a statement. It's a proposition. The only other person I ever met who thought this was profound and interpreted it as some kind of argument or proof was a DXM addicted alcoholic 19 year old who romanticized living as a homeless drifter.

>>22621165
>>22621158
Most of the Mulamadhyamakakarika is arguments against inherent existence, the refutations of the other three follow from those arguments

>>22620312
>experiencing thoughts like you're a container passively being filled with phenomena
This is a prevalent misunderstanding. There isn't really a "watcher/witness of phenomena" or an "aware container/space in which phenomena are experienced". The phenomena themselves are the awareness of them. One way of describing it is that sights see, sounds hear, sensations sense, thoughts think, etc. The sense of being any kind of active or passive observer of phenomena is not awareness itself but just another phenomenon. Phenomena don't appear to or in awareness, phenomena are awareness appearing as phenomena.
>Why even care about concepts like suffering or nirvana or enlightenment or Brahman or whatever if none of it applies to the only thing that can definitively be said to be "you," your awareness?
You actually seem to have the correct intuition here but arrived at the wrong conclusion. The end of suffering is essentially just the realization that awareness is already free from suffering. But this realization is not a thought, concept, belief, identity, intellectual conclusion, etc.

>>22623105
>This is a prevalent misunderstanding.
Not at all, I’m not that anon but I view it as being entirely correct, different eastern schools teach different positions on this matter but I find the arguments much stronger for phenomena being different from awareness than the arguments for them being the same, which to me seem based on wishful thinking.

>There isn't really a "watcher/witness of phenomena" or an "aware container/space in which phenomena are experienced". The phenomena themselves are the awareness of them.
I see this as counter-intuitive and as just disagreeing with how our experience takes place. The idea that there is no awareness besides the phenomena itself is contradicted by how awareness remains present in ordinary experience while phenomena (such the sight of a tree or car or cloud) appear and disappear, since something cannot both be aware of itself and vanish at the same time the fact that awareness remains present strongly indicates that its distinct from the phenomenal images that rise and fall. Furthermore, if each sensory organ and/or its function had its own awareness like sight being aware of itself and taste being aware of itself, there would be no way for these to combine to produce the smooth united experience we have where everything occurs in one smooth integrated experience, since the sense of sound has no capacity to smell odors, and nor can the sense of smell hear sounds, so each would be isolated in its own subjective world without these combining to produce human conscious experience as we know it.

In awareness there is an irreducible “presence” which is not reducible to any sort of of objective content, attempts to conflate awareness with phenomena implicitly accept this presence as the “knowing capacity” that is distinct from the objective content in order to even explain their position but they try to locate it in the objective content and one of its constituents which is exactly what it’s not reducible to.

>>22623515
What is awareness without phenomena like?

>>22623805
> What is awareness without phenomena like?
It is the exact same as awareness with phenomena present, the only difference in the two scenarios is the presence or absence of something besides awareness, but that is not a change in awareness itself.

>>22604217
>Okay, well, what is empty then?
a bag is empty when there's nothing in it.

>>22623515
>phenomena being different from awareness
This may be true metaphysically, but I was pointing to the "experience" by describing it using that anon's terminology. I wasn't making any claims or statements about reality.
>I see this as counter-intuitive
I wasn't suggesting each sensory organ/function has it's own awareness or that each phenomenon has it's own awareness, but that if you investigate what is actually seen, heard, sensed, etc, no evidence for a separate I/me, witness, watcher, observer, awareness etc can be seen, heard, sensed, etc. In experience at least, any separation or distance that seems to really be there between subject and object is entirely imaginary. Any feeling or thought of being discrete is just a feeling and thought. An inquiry/meditation which applies to any sense is: do you actually see any distance between where you seem to be seeing from and whatever you're seeing? Not what you think you see, but what is actually seen.

Hopefully that's of some value to you as I don't really have anything else to say to your objections, but I appreciate the interesting and detailed reply.

>>22604978
>I mean, in pulling my rug, he also pulls his own rug. So I guess I get my rug back?
>>22605323
>So, rug pull, but then self rug pull, so I get my rug back.
How about "rug pull, then self rug pull, then you both float in space with no ground".
I barely understand what you're both talking about, but I understand rug pull analogy.

>>22624028
I actually agree with some of your conclusions but I come at them from a different basis. It seems like you are talking about a kind of Mahayana/Vajrayana attempt to deconstruct duality by arguing that experience takes place without being bifurcated into a separate observing subject vs an object. As part of this, some Buddhist writers, taking cue from earlier Yogacharins, go as far to say that thoughts and sensations are self-aware of themselves. You weren't saying that awareness was necessarily metaphysically identical with phenomenal data though, which you clarified in response to my post.

I agree more with Advaita Vedanta, but on certain points they agree. The Advaitist says that awareness is an unconditioned, partless and naturally-present reality that is self-aware of Itself automatically, that It has a self-luminous 'auto-awareness' that doesn't involve bifurcation into subject/object, and that It is a boundless space in which all minds float and have experiences through Its light and in this way It's already present in all experience; in this view the subject vs object dichotomy is false, not because there is no independent awareness, but because the independent awareness is non-dual and Itself without any subject vs object dichotomy, there is no discrete conscious subject that is distinct from other conscious subjects but only a single, uniform, all-pervading and free conscious reality that is the condition of possibility for various insentient-mind-objects to all take that same undivided indeterminate awareness and appropriate it as the outward-directed conscious 'subject' who is 'aware of' things and to thereby set up a subject/object divide, but even when the mind is doing so awareness remains completely free and undivided like space. Advaitins can affirm literally that one's innermost awareness is already eternally liberated and ever free, even right now, because what has the experience of thoughts, sense-data and samsara in general is not the innermost awareness but the intellect/mind and its workings being 'lit up' with the light of this unaffected non-dual awareness which, like the Bonpo Tshon Gang, is formless, inexpressible and non-conceptual and yet is the undefiled base of all that arises.

Adi Shankara critiques and rejects the Yogachara model of self-illuminating thoughts in his writings in part by noting how awareness is an irreducible presence that eludes reduction to any phenomenal thought or sensation and that it's contradictory and against experience to identify them, the Yogacharins were making a metaphysical claim about idealism afaik but later Buddhist writers differ widely. Some Vajrayana & later Mahayana schools agree with Advaita about awareness being already pristine, free of suffering and duality etc but they usually do so within a context of this sort of Yogachara epistemology that Advaita rejects, so it can sound like two different ways of talking about the same thing sometimes.

>>22624381
If I had to classify myself I'd probably be some kind of generic non-dualist by which I mean non-duality is obviously true of experience and I have a lot of respect for both Buddhism and Advaita, but I haven't made any metaphysical conclusions about it like Advaita or later Buddhism does. That is partly deliberate as I think that both Buddhism and Advaita et al are merely "rafts to get to the other shore", to use a Buddhist analogy. Meaning that both Buddhism and Advaita ultimately point past themselves. In other words, while Advaita might be as close to describing reality as we can get, it's still just a signpost directing you beyond the concepts, and of course nothing can be said about that. But I could be wrong. So I agree with a lot of what you said but I don't currently take it to be true or false in an ultimate/absolute sense. This might be poorly written as I'm quite tired but hopefully you get my point.

They're probably pedantic but I do have some problems with the metaphor of awareness as a "witness" or "space" etc. I understand some of the utility of the analogies but to me "witness" implies duality and "space" implies that awareness is a kind of vast infinite empty field or container which in my understanding would be a misunderstanding since space is an appearance/illusion and awareness has no dimensions.