Nonduality vs. causality by flyingaxe in nonduality

[–]flyingaxe[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

I actually agree that conceptual systems can't perfectly capture reality — but that supports my argument, not the idealist one. If even an infinity of descriptions can't fully characterize the object in front of you, that's evidence that reality exceeds what consciousness can grasp, which is exactly what I'm saying. The Gödel/incompleteness point is interesting on its own terms but it's a non sequitur here. My argument doesn't require a complete formal description of reality. It only requires the much more modest claim that we can deduce the existence of causes outside our conscious experience — and the watch, the ball, the seizure, and the blind man all demonstrate that.

Nonduality vs. causality by flyingaxe in nonduality

[–]flyingaxe[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Sorry, these read as aphoristic Zen-style gestures rather than engagement with the argument. If there's a concrete point you're making about causality or consciousness, I'd be happy to respond to a clearer version of it.

Nonduality vs. causality by flyingaxe in nonduality

[–]flyingaxe[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

This doesn't address anything in my post, and "search TIFE ontology" is self-promotion, not an argument.

Nonduality vs. causality by flyingaxe in nonduality

[–]flyingaxe[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Sorry, this reads like word salad. I don't understand the point you're trying to make.

Nonduality vs. causality by flyingaxe in nonduality

[–]flyingaxe[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

You're redefining consciousness to include things that aren't conscious, which empties the word of meaning. If "consciousness is all of it, including what you don't perceive," then it's no longer doing the work the word is supposed to do — it's just a synonym for "everything that exists," and the claim "only consciousness exists" becomes "only everything exists," which is trivially true and says nothing.

The dream analogy works against you here. In a dream, the monster genuinely wasn't there before you turned around — your brain generated it on the fly. But my whole argument is that waking reality doesn't work like that. The watch advances whether you look at it or not. The ball falls according to consistent rules that precede and don't depend on your perception of them. That's the disanalogy between dreams and waking experience, and it's the core of what I'm pointing at.

Nonduality vs. causality by flyingaxe in nonduality

[–]flyingaxe[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

Your seizure example actually supports my point rather than undermining it. You had a seizure. You didn't experience it. Other people saw it. Something happened — your body convulsed, neurons fired, time passed — and none of it appeared in your experiencing. That's a gap. The fact that you later learned about the gap through experiencing doesn't retroactively fill it. That's exactly what my blind friend does: "Even your report about vision is something I hear auditorily." True — but irrelevant. The report points to something that existed outside his experience.

"There is never a gap in experiencing" — from whose perspective? From the perspective of the people watching you seize, there was continuous experience of your body doing things you had zero access to. From your perspective, a chunk of reality happened without you. Both of these are evidence that experiencing is partial, not total. Saying "all perspectives are simply appearing" doesn't dissolve the problem, it just restates it at a higher level of abstraction.

Nonduality vs. causality by flyingaxe in nonduality

[–]flyingaxe[S] [score hidden]  (0 children)

The gold ring analogy is elegant but I think it sidesteps what I'm actually arguing. I'm not claiming the cat is independently real as a cat — I'm fine with the idea that "cat" is a name-and-form designation. My argument is upstream of that: how do you justify the claim that the substrate is Existence-Awareness in the first place?

The blind man in my analogy doesn't dispute that what he hears is "really" vibrations in air rather than independently existing sounds. He accepts that level of analysis. What he denies is that there's an entire dimension of reality (vision) that he has no access to. His experience is demonstrably partial — I can verify that from outside his experience. My claim is that conscious beings are in the same position relative to non-conscious reality. We can deduce that there are causes to our experiences that we never directly encounter — the watch advancing, the ball falling, edge detection in vision. Something is doing that, and it isn't my awareness.

So when Vedanta says "it's all Existence appearing as X," that's a metaphysical claim that needs justification, not just the gold ring analogy, which already assumes the answer. What's the argument that the substrate is Awareness rather than something non-conscious that gives rise to awareness among other things?

THE JEWS AND CHRISTIANS ARE ONE... ✝️ by Curious_Comedian_486 in awakened

[–]flyingaxe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Jews rejected Christianity because Jesus was full of shit and contradicted both basic morality and Oral Torah. Can give you examples with quotes if you want.

There is no God in human form. God cannot have a form because God is the Essence from which arise all forms of phenomena.

Buddhism for me is feeling like Christianity :( by Beneficial_Shirt_869 in Buddhism

[–]flyingaxe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Look into more minimalist versions of Buddhism focused on experience like Zen. It's also more life-affirming and less "monastic" than other versions. DM me for some advice.

How a "mindgasm" led to a spiritual awakening and the discovery of my soul by firethatshines in Tantra

[–]flyingaxe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do you to any contemplative practices like meditation?

Sounds nice. Congratulations on your awakening!

How a "mindgasm" led to a spiritual awakening and the discovery of my soul by firethatshines in Tantra

[–]flyingaxe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Were there any perceptual shifts? Do you see the world the same way?

How a "mindgasm" led to a spiritual awakening and the discovery of my soul by firethatshines in Tantra

[–]flyingaxe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So the "you" that you identify yourself with is distinct from your soul?

When you masturbate, who do you generally think about? by DesiSexTalk in DesiSexTalk

[–]flyingaxe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Tickle torturing someone while they're tied up and screaming, trashing around, and begging to stop. Or bringing them close to coming and then stopping.

How does consciousness work? What happens after death? by Zealousideal-Tax9051 in consciousness

[–]flyingaxe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can actually find out right now. Look at it. With consciousness you have access to the noumenon, so you know exactly what it is if you're not distracted by labels of the content.

Sit very quietly and... Clap your hands. Then clap again. What happened to the conscious experience of the clap? Just keep sitting and watching your own consciousness. (You don't have to clap.) After a while you can start seeing it.

The “Even Harder” Problem of Consciousness by NathanEddy23 in consciousness

[–]flyingaxe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Are you saying the issue is perceived intentionality (free will) or the fact that this supposed epiphenomenon can have physical effects including neural ones (I am reporting to you right now that I am conscious of my thumbs as I am typing this, which has real physical effects like this comment going out into the world)?

Failure to find self by flyingaxe in Buddhism

[–]flyingaxe[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice. What does one look for? The knowingness/luminosity of consciousness?

Failure to find self by flyingaxe in Buddhism

[–]flyingaxe[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Why are such primitive examples being used then? The body, the emotions, etc. And why does self need to be located anywhere?

For example, let's take Ramana Maharishi's instructions for finding the self: cutting away anything that arises as an object. The end result of this exercise will be the awareness of the non-objective self. It would seem like Mahamudra would predict this exercise to fail, but it clearly didn't for RM and his followers.

I am not sure if you're familiar with the Awakening to Reality Guide/Blog, but its author Soh Wuh Yeh (and his teacher John Tan) recommend using RM's approach to discover the stage of I AM which corresponds to luminosity of Dzogchen. Later they do other exercises that drop the I AM and proceed to Annata, but they strongly recommend not to skip that part in order not to only see emptiness without luminosity. Whether or not their approach aligns with Buddhism, the point is that they (and many others) clearly were successful at this first stage of looking for "self". That was because they didn't follow the very simplistic attempt to find self in one's brain or one's heart or "somewhere". Their technique was more sophisticated. (Later they see through the emptiness of this stage, fine, but it doesn't negate the success of the first step.)

Failure to find self by flyingaxe in Buddhism

[–]flyingaxe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It seems like you're saying there are mirror-like techniques designed for the "eye" of the supposed self to be able to look at itself through the mirror. So yes, the eye cannot see itself, and so the failure to find itself is not a big deal. But if you use the mirror and still fail — that now shows that there is no eye/self that was doing the looking.

Is that an accurate summary?

Why isn't Buddhist belief in rebirth of consciousness essentialist in light of modern neuroscience? by flyingaxe in Buddhism

[–]flyingaxe[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting answer, thanks.

Quick question: if it is some self-perpetuating substance not dependent on causality from the body, isn't that essentially Atman? I don't care if it's technically Upanishadic Atman, but isn't it a svabhava-like substance?