Getting to know people?

[Dawid Dahl]

Hello, everyone! Thanks Bruce for inviting me.

 

I'm Dawid, from Sweden, with a passion for abstruse truth, pensive art, well-rounded morality, daring transhumanism, and integral cognition.

 

It would be awesome to get to know a few of you people here. (James, e, Bruce and Irmeli I am fortunate enough to know a little already, even back from the ol' Zaads days.) So I thought that perhaps the easiest way of making that happen would be to start with a premeditatedly terse - perhaps annoyingly so? - question! I'd really appreciate any answers, be they elaborate or concise, 0-tier or 4th-tier. So here goes:

 

Does God exist?

 

Kindly,

Dawid

 

:)

[James Barrow]

E: "without the need to posit 2 distinct ultimate and relative realms. Isn't this the import of 'samsara is nirvana'?"

 

Wow, this is great. Is this an accurate description of how you see the world e? I was beginning to think all buddhist approaches actually insisted on this concept of 2 distinct ultimate and relative realms.

[Dawid Dahl]

"If you don't claim an ultimate casual agent, how can you claim a relative one when you don't observe it?"

 

When I drop the conceptual imputations of duality, I don't observe any causality. Really. Therefore I wouldn't say I hold a notion of an ultimate causal agent. Yet, when I'm in the illusory conceptual-imputation-world, like right now as I'm writing this, then it just appears to be the case that one option is way more probable than the other. I don't have a concept for why this is, all I have is that observation, which strikes me as valid.

 

Does this posit an "absolute causal agent"? Again, I wouldn't say that, because "absolute causal agent" sounds like a dualistic concept to me. Like, you have "the world of sin" over here, and then an "absolute causal agent" over here. That's not how I think about it. The way I do think about it is more that I simply can't say anything about ultimate reality, yet, when you're confronted with two options in the conventional world of conceptual imputation, one option undeniably appears more probable; predictions about them are possible. And that we therefore can conclude, with (conventional) authority, that (absolute or conventional) chaos is not an accurate description of our conventional experience.

 

"#2 is not an option given the earthly constraints. So it is a bogus argument."

 

Yes, and to me, the reason you're able to affirm that is because the world we've digitally chopped up in conceptuality (i.e. conventional reality) can not be described as chaotic. If it actually was chaotic, #2 would be a perfectly feasible option, and we couldn't make any predictions.

 

"BTW I am not positing (absolute) chaos either."

 

That's great to hear. But my question to you would be, why not? I am genuinely interested.

[Dawid Dahl]

James: "I was beginning to think all buddhist approaches actually insisted on this concept of 2 distinct ultimate and relative realms."

 

You should read Nagarjuna. :) He lucidly makes the case that the two truths doctrines is — just as the Buddha explained using the raft parable — simply a useful and pragmatic tool, not an ontological reality.

[James Barrow]

Dawid: "the two truths doctrines is — just as the Buddha explained using the raft parable — simply a useful and pragmatic tool, not an ontological reality."

 

Phew, thanks Dawid.

[e]

Yeah James that is my view. It is not the most popular. Most Buddhists like most religious people believe in some transcendent realm where the going is perpetually easy. I was in Bodhgaya for the first time this past November. There is a tree on the spot where it is said the Buddha was realized. I did not notice any otherworldliness to the place (although it is a very cool place worth visiting). So this is it...wherever you are...you either intuit your current experience dualistically or not.

 

-- 

 

I am not an absolutist Dawid. I’ve never found anything worthy of affixing that label. I am still not clear on why you believe in a relative causality when you admit you don’t experience it.

 

[Dawid Dahl]

"I am not an absolutist Dawid. I’ve never found anything worthy of affixing that label. I am still not clear on why you believe in a relative causality when you admit you don’t experience it."

 

I am very glad we're having this conversation, as I'm able to make it clear to myself what my view really is. To distill it, this is what I've come to:

 

When you have arbitrarily chopped up the world digitally (by way of conceptual imputation) for pragmatic reasons, then if you have two or more digital/dualistic options within that world, it is with some phenomena possible to accurately predict which one will occur, or which one will not occur. As with the two alternatives with the rock either #1 falling to the ground, or #2 flying away. This possibility of making conventional predictions is my view.

 

Because it is possible to make accurate predictions like this, it is true that the conventional world is not chaotic. Because this is true, the statement: "there is no truth apart from conceptuality" can not be true. So yes, I admit being able to experience a possibility to make predictions within the digitally chopped up (i.e. illusory) world. And I think you do too, since you said: "#2 is not an option given the earthly constraints." If the statement "the world is chaotic" was true, #2 would be a perfectly feasible option.

 

To put this in a more succinct, logical formulation: the statement "the conventional world is inherently chaotic" can not be true because if it were, anything would be able to cause anything, but this is not our experience.

[e]

When you have arbitrarily chopped up the world digitally (by way of conceptual imputation) for pragmatic reasons, then if you have two or more digital/dualistic options within that world, it is with some phenomena possible to accurately predict which one will occur, or which one will not occur. As with the two alternatives with the rock either #1 falling to the ground, or #2 flying away. This possibility of making conventional predictions is my view.

But you don't have those 2 options. You are saying "given A or B, if A then causality". But B is NEVER an option so you are saying "given A then causality". Since A is always a given you are just confirming a belief with a given. The belief could be anything unknown i.e. God, fairies, UFO's, whatever. The belief is a non-sequiter.

To put this in a more succinct, logical formulation: the statement "the conventional world is inherently chaotic" can not be true because if it were, anything would be able to cause anything, but this is not our experience.

What caused causality?

[Dawid Dahl]

e: "But B is NEVER an option..."

  

The way I see it, this argument just proves my point. There is a reason you're able to say, with such overwhelming confidence, that B is never an option. If chaos were the case, then B would be a perfectly feasible option, but it isn't. Therefore, chaos - from within the perspective of a digitally chopped up conceptual world - is not the case.

 

[Christophe]

'#cough cough#

 

Well, you really get to know people on this thread. No diggity.

 

I cant see the difference between your dialog above and medieval debates about "how many angels can dance on a pinpoint?" I cant possibly imagine anything more unwordly than this thread.

 

Namaste

[e]

Not to bore you further Christophe but we are basically chatting around the first chapter in Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakarika. (It's sort of subtle if you are not familiar with it.) I side with Buddha and Nagarjuna in the denial of causality and Dawid is maintaining some views from his days living under the oppressive Orange scientific materialistic reductionist world view i.e. there just has to be a cause for every existent thing.

[Dawid Dahl]

Helloes, e.

 

You should note the fact that I don't say that things are inherently caused. When I say that things are caused I always qualify that statement by saying that we are discussing from within the conceptually imputed, digitally chopped up world. If we stop asserting the existence of these conceptually imputed phenomena, speaking of causation or non-causation is, of course, meaningless.

 

You're still left with my point that within the arbitrarily conceptually imputed, digitally chopped up world, when we have two options to choose from, one will turn out to be more feasible than the other. You can predict one as more probable than the other. As you said yourself, the rock flying away just isn't an option. My question to you is - why isn't this an option?

 

You know I have an open mind. Make a good case for why my argument is flawed, and I'll change my view in a heartbeat.

 

"I side with Buddha and Nagarjuna in the denial of causality"

 

"Neither from itself nor from another,

Nor from both,

Nor without a cause,

Does anything whatever, anywhere arise."

 

[e]

Is your argument affirming the consequence?

 

If causality (and not chaos), then rocks fall.

Rocks fall.

Causality.

 

--

 

You see Nagarjuna affirming the last horn of the tetralemma on causality? Aren't all the tetralemmas in the MMK but one used negatively?

Here is how I read it. Bracketing a translation from Batchelor from here.

 

1. No thing anywhere is ever born [arises]: (from itself, from something else, from both or without a cause [causelessly]).

 

So he flat out denies all four causal options and then goes on to accept and clarify conditionality in the rest of the chapter.