/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.14376628]

>As far as the concept of emptiness or the ultimate nature of reality is concerned this is one area where there is an emerging convergenve between the Buddhist understanding of the ultimate nature of existence and the evolving contemporary scientific view. This convergence relates to the unfindability of entities when these are analytically sought.

How do christcucks respond against this argument?

[Anonymous No.14376659]

Continued

>In modern science the methods of analysis are principally applied to investigating the nature of material entities. Thus, the ultimate nature of matter is sought through a reductive process and the macroscopic world of particles. Yet, when the nature of these particles is further examined, we find ultimately their very existence as objects is called into question.

[Anonymous No.14377153]

>>This convergence relates to the unfindability of entities when these are analytically sought.
This garbage reasoning is emblematic of the faulty basis on which so much Buddhist 'philosophy' rests, it's foolish to try to deduce metaphysical claims about the nature of ultimate reality based on the epistemology of how our mind operates. Proper metaphysics uses intuitive logic, often starting with first principles and backs this up with supporting examples drawing from common sense, analogy, and our immediate experience, starting with conclusions from epistemology and turning that into a metaphysical model as Buddhists like to do is doing it backwards which leads to retarded conclusions. When Buddhists try to make metaphysical claims based on this stuff they are making the same mistake of reifying the mind that they blithely accuse other eastern philosophy of making. For most people the simple observance of other people and animals as living beings is sufficient to consider them as 'entities', nowhere is any good reason offered why we should not consider them to be living entities, similarly our conscious presence in time as self-aware beings is sufficient to regard ourselves as entities, Buddhism doesn't have any compelling arguments against this which don't ultimately involve either circular reasoning (if you think you're an entity that's bad and comes from ignorance according to Buddhist precept #1342) or makes the "if the eye cannot see itself therefor the eye cannot into being real" fallacy.
>Thus, the ultimate nature of matter is sought through a reductive process and the macroscopic world of particles. Yet, when the nature of these particles is further examined, we find ultimately their very existence as objects is called into question.
No that's wrong, scientists don't doubt the existence of objects at all, they just say that the sub-atomic particles making up the atoms in that exist in an indeterminate state in a sort of 'quantum foam', that doesn't mean that their assemblage into objects is not empirically valid or that it's not real. Quantum Physics cannot be used to support any sort of claims about emptiness or sunyata because QM says that underlying everything is the quantum foam and not emptiness or empty space or what have you. Our supposed inability to define objects as entities because the sub-atomic particles making it up don't always at every moment exist qua particles cannot be garned to support the metaphysical conclusion of emptiness because scientists say that in there state of indeterminacy sub-atomic particles exist as a quantum foam that's practically the same as the aether, the very same aether (or akasha) that Nagarjuna attempts but fails to debunk because of how his attempted refutation of it is premised on his denial of real entities having extension which he never satisfactorily proves to begin with and so his argument against akasha falls apart.

[Anonymous No.14377213]

Quantum physics is basically mathematical mysticism at this point, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they said that the world is actually made up of DMT

[Anonymous No.14377222]

>>14376628
Buddhism is the most satanic "religion". Stay away at all costs.
>Bro nothing matters brrrauh
>Break your ego and be empty so that demons can possess you brrrauhg
>Bro you don't matter...just sit there and do nothing til you feel enlightened
>Bro god isn't real...that's right just sit there so you don't have to exist anymore
Fuck buddhism. The goal of the religion is to deny all that is good.

[Anonymous No.14377275]

>>14377153
You refute yourself a couple of times in first paragraph and objection in second doesn't apply to Buddhist understanding of Emptiness.

[Anonymous No.14377302]

>>14377153
Things both exist and don’t exist. It’s disingenuous to talk about entities as either fully existing or non-existing. I agree with the Buddhists on that. I disagree with their life-denying nihilism that follows from this insight. I don’t think detachment from the world follows from the fundamental emptiness of things - we just have to be cognisant that our analytic projects will never arrive at a totality. We must be content, as it were, with partial knowledge. That’s also implicit in the legacy of the failure of the enlightenment project. I think we as a civilisation need to be mature about our limitations without turning into nihilists.

[Anonymous No.14377332]

>>14377275
>You refute yourself a couple of times in first paragraph
such as?

[Anonymous No.14377333]

>>14377302
>Things both exist and don’t exist
No.

[Anonymous No.14377339]

>>14377153
>QM says that underlying everything is the quantum foam

[Anonymous No.14377350]

>>14377339
Yes sir. Problem?

[Anonymous No.14377358]

>>14377350
cringe

[Anonymous No.14377366]

>>14377333
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition

[Anonymous No.14377372]

>>14377333
In so far as in the strictest sense, mass wildebeest migrations (for example) can be modelled in terms of movements in the quantum foam - but to talk about wildebeest migrations purely in terms of quantum foam would be to be totally disingenuous about the nature of that phenomenon.

[Anonymous No.14377376]

>>14377358
No sir. Btw, your mom had a good time on my quantum foam last night.

[Anonymous No.14377379]

>>14377302
>I agree with the Buddhists on that
buddhist don't say that though. They negate all binary propositions via the fourfold negation.

[Anonymous No.14377384]

>>14377366
You could have tried to clarify advance your point in numerous ways, but instead you literally just did pic related.

[Anonymous No.14377391]

>>14377384
Yes.

[Anonymous No.14377400]

>>14377391
I understand now.

[Anonymous No.14377465]

>>14377384
It really depends on what you mean by existence. In Buddhism, there are multiple kinds of existence.

[Anonymous No.14377492]

Could the Buddha really turn different colors? Books on how to achieve this?

[Anonymous No.14377535]

>>14377153
>epistemology of how our mind operates
>intuitive logic
uhh isnt intuitive logic based on that

[Anonymous No.14377550]

>>14377222
>>Bro nothing matters brrrauh
False
>>>Break your ego and be empty so that demons can possess you brrrauhg
False
>>>Bro you don't matter...just sit there and do nothing til you feel enlightened
False
>>Bro god isn't real...that's right just sit there so you don't have to exist anymore
True

[Anonymous No.14377565]

>>14377333
yeah the buddhists don't even really think this

[Anonymous No.14377653]

>>14377550
based

[Anonymous No.14377681]

>>14377333
>>14377565
This. Things neither exist nor don't exist.

[Anonymous No.14377692]

>>14377379
Yes we’re on the same page. I don’t disagree. I mean something like even though in Buddhism, for example, there isn’t a soul or absolute self, neither is there not not a self. If there were not a self, there would be no perceiving subject to be caught in samsara. In that respect, neither binary position is fully committed to. It is a little bit more sophisticated if you talk about it in a fourfold sense, but that’s the basic idea.

[Anonymous No.14377801]

>>14377535
On the surface it's the same but there is a subtle difference, Buddhists tend to take X feature of our mind or the Z limitation of the way out mind operates (i.e. the consious self cannot grasp itself as its own object) and extend it to the realm of making an ontological/metaphysical claim (i.e. there is no self whatsoever either as conscious and existing entities or as whatever else like the essence of objects) whereas traditional metaphysics recognizes the limits and fallability of thought but nevertheless realizes that we can only engage in speculative/constructive metaphysics or evaluate any other type of metaphysical claim insofar as it accords with logic and aligns with examples and supporting evidence from our direct experience and analagies that we can draw from the world. In this later sense when we evaluate the claim that the self is an illusion for example we find that there are no known examples of illusions such as mirages being self-aware and consious like we are, that the self cannot grasp itself does not support it's non-existence anymore than the eye's inability to see itself means the eye doesn't exist. Similarly we know of no instance in which emptiness can give rise to anything but upon analysis all transformation and arising is predicated on some previously existing substratum for that change to act upon. When we analyze the nature of illusion we find that they both require an existent observer to be perceived as well as an existent basis upon which they can be superimposed. The list of Buddhist claims which don't stand up to reason are quite numerous.

[Anonymous No.14377815]

>>14377801
>n this later sense when we evaluate the claim that the self is an illusion for example we find that there are no known examples of illusions such as mirages being self-aware and consious like we are, that the self cannot grasp itself does not support it's non-existence anymore than the eye's inability to see itself means the eye doesn't exist.

poor understanding of buddhism. the self is an aggregate of elements/determinations outside of itself and for that reason "unreal", without abiding essence.

[Anonymous No.14377844]

>>14377815
>the self is an aggregate of elements/determinations outside of itself
Yes, that's what you accept dogmatically, the only problem is that every attempt to prove or offer evidence for this utterly fails to accord with the actual undivided unity and continuity of our conscious awareness which is experienced as a contiuum and not as a jumbled-together aggregate

[Anonymous No.14378013]

>>14377815
>poor understanding of buddhism. the self is an aggregate of elements/determinations outside of itself and for that reason "unreal", without abiding essence.
Much of Western metaphysics gives priority to permanence and enduring being, while much of Buddhist metaphysics makes the opposite error, making permanence subservient to flux and becoming. The solution of process philosophy is to make neither primary but mutually interdependent perspectives that are involved with all phenomenon.

>In the inescapable flux, there is something that abides; in the overwhelming permanence, there is an element that escapes into flux. Permanence can only be snatched out of flux; and the passing moment can find its adequate intensity only by its submission to permanence. Those who would disjoin the two elements can find no interpretation of patent facts.
-Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality page 338.

This dynamic is found in calculus as the relationship between integration and differentiation as inverse operations of the same process. It is also found in the method of discovery itself, with understanding being the un-doing of a discovery, and every discovery the un-doing of an existing understanding. These are also modes of perception corresponding to instantaneous change in the present moment and cumulative change over time. Our experience of the present moment is the continual re-discovery of the world, with what is present in our awareness being an exception to what existing understanding can automatically anticipate. Mindfulness practices cultivate the mode of present observation, sensitivity to immediate change, and a focus on such practices is the reason for the presentist bias in Buddhism. This bias isn't wholly "incorrect" merely extremely incomplete by omitting the counterpart mode. Desire involves cumulate change, a grasping beyond the immediacy of the present, and so Buddhism incorrectly pathologizes desire because it is unaccountable from the mode of presentational immediacy. However desire and the mode of anticipation can be pathological, which is why mindfulness practices are pretty effective in treating anxiety and depression (though not as effective as Buddhists claim.)

[Anonymous No.14378034]

>>14377844
a cell is continuous with itself, but it does not stop being a cell - an aggregate of elements intrinsically dependent on and sensitive to external conditions.

[Anonymous No.14378173]

>>14378034
That may be so but we are not talking about cells but the conscious self, and so your analogy has no relevance for the purpose of our discussion

[Anonymous No.14378185]

>>14378173
It does, because nowhere will you find a Buddhist claiming that conditionality should translate into discontinuity for consciousness

[Anonymous No.14378475]

>>14378173
He's saying it works in the same way as a cell.

[Anonymous No.14378810]

>>14378185
The point is that regardless of whether you want to claim that consciousness is 'conditional' which is an unfalsifiable claim; that any attempt to show that it is an aggregate fails to accord with the continuum of our immediate conscious experience, see pic related for example

[Anonymous No.14378847]

>>14377492
he's just holding his breath

[Anonymous No.14378858]

>>14377492
to turn orange eat lots of carrots
to turn blue hold your breath
to turn read run around alot and breath fast especially on a cold day, or stay in the sun all day during summer
to turn green get some green paint and dip yourself in it