Participatory Spirituality for the 21st Century
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
:)
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"Is your argument affirming the consequence?
If causality (and not chaos), then rocks fall.
Rocks fall.
Causality."
That's not how my argument is constructed. What I'm saying is that if you have two options to choose from, one of them will be much more feasible. (You've accepted this.) And that therefore, both options aren't equally feasible. And if they aren't equally feasible, then chaos can not be the case. (If you can predict something, I think chaos can't be the case by definition.) And if chaos is not the case, non-chaos in the digitally chopped up world of conceptual imputations, is the case.
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I could add as a disclaimer that I am hoping to do away with this kind of causality. It would be great! I'm currently reading this book, for example: http://www.amazon.com/Skeptic-Way-Empiricuss-Outlines-Pyrrhonism/dp...
It's just that I need to find a good reason for how to do away with it, like I've found good reason - and realized practically - to do away the self-nature of dualistic phenomena. I can't just accept it because some people say it, even if I'd want to.
Dawid: What I'm saying is that if you have two options to choose from, one of them will be much more feasible. (You've accepted this.)
No, I’ve suggested there is a middle position between belief in causality or chaos theories. That conditionality is what I see Nagarjuna proffering in the 1st chapter of the MMK. He is establishing how conditionality should be understood i.e. not in any of the four fold ways as causality. He is clarifying what Buddha meant when he often described paticca-sumapada (dependent origination) as idappaccayata-paticca-sumapada (conditioned-dependent-origination). Only with a clear understanding of the pacaya (conditions) of idappacayyata can he later make the claim that dependent origination is emptiness. Now I know many people say Dependent Origination is Buddhist causality i.e. ignorance causes suffering or the cause of suffering is clinging, etc. But dependent origination is governed by idappacayyata (conditionality).
Idappaccayata - this/that conditionality
When this is, that is. From the arising of this, that arises.
When this is not, that is not. From the ceasing of this, that ceases.
At first it does not make much sense because we are acculturated to belief in causality of substantial things i.e. this causes or has the power to produce that. Here is a simple sutra making it clear.
"When birth is, death is. From the arising of birth, death arises."
Birth does not cause or have the power to produce death. They dependently originate. So there is not this substantial thing called ignorance over here that causes or produces suffering over there. But when there is ignorance there is suffering i.e. an ignorantly conditioned mind/body suffers. Simply stop (cease) the ignorant conditioning... no suffering. (That is all any Buddhist practice or analysis is meant to accomplish.)
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Dawid: It's just that I need to find a good reason for how to do away with it, ...
This is worth a look.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
Hello, e. Thanks for your explanation.
"Birth does not cause or have the power to produce death. They dependently originate. So there is not this substantial thing called ignorance over here that causes or produces suffering over there. But when there is ignorance there is suffering i.e. an ignorantly conditioned mind/body suffers. Simply stop (cease) the ignorant conditioning... no suffering. (That is all any Buddhist practice or analysis is meant to accomplish.)"
So it seems to me there are two ways to think about this:
1) substantial, reified causation. An inherently existent X causes (by a power which is inherent in X) Y.
Or 2) conditionality, regularity. Illusory (verbally designated) phenomena seems to appear when certain conditions are present. The difference being that conditionality doesn't imply substantial, reified causation, in the sense of things are causing other things by their own power.
Is this a meaningful differentiation? Am I misunderstanding your use of conditionality?
I read this article by Jay L. Garfield the other day. He also seems to make the case that 1) is what Nagarjuna refutes, but not 2), namely regularity or conditionality. This is my view as well. I will copy & paste and highlight the parts pertaining to the topic at hand:
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Is this also what you mean by conditionality, or do you have another interpretation as for the middle way between inherent causality and inherent chaos?
Thanks again,
Dawid
Hey Dawid,
Sorry for the long delay.
e: "Birth does not cause or have the power to produce death. They dependently originate. So there is not this substantial thing called ignorance over here that causes or produces suffering over there. But when there is ignorance there is suffering i.e. an ignorantly conditioned mind/body suffers. Simply stop (cease) the ignorant conditioning... no suffering. (That is all any Buddhist practice or analysis is meant to accomplish.)"
Dawid: So it seems to me there are two ways to think about this:
1) substantial, reified causation. An inherently existent X causes (by a power which is inherent in X) Y.
Or 2) conditionality, regularity. Illusory (verbally designated) phenomena seems to appear when certain conditions are present. The difference being that conditionality doesn't imply substantial, reified causation, in the sense of things are causing other things by their own power.
Is this a meaningful differentiation?
I guess it depends on who is looking at what. Most modern scientists are looking for atomistic causal agents. Many can't find or synthesize them i.e. graviton, fire, autism, cancer, etc. In regards to Buddhism it’s said Buddha awoke to conditionality on the eve of his enlightenment. At the first sermon Kondana was the first to understand and when asked said whatever arises passes away. Buddha said whoever sees dependent origination sees the dhamma and whoever sees the dhamma sees dependent origination. If there were inherent existence with causal power, how could suffering cease?
Am I misunderstanding your use of conditionality?
Sans the "illusory" addition as the real/illusion distinction does not apply i.e. whatever one thinks is real or illusory is dependently originated. Also, there are aspects of dependent origination that are not verbal. For instance, at contact sensations and desire can arise at any of the 6 sense doors, not just thought with thought consciousness. With this in mind it seems Garfield spent a lot of time in a library and not much time looking within his own mind/body. That is, as much as I also enjoy Buddhist philosophy, more benefit comes from putting the ideas into practice. If you do that, I don't see how you can maintain that Regularity is always regularity-under-a-description, and descriptions are, as Nagarjuna puts it, "verbal designations." If you sat down just one time and tried to be still for 30 minutes, you would realize pretty quickly the regular reoccurring pain at your knee aint a "verbal designation". With modest concentrative effort you can put thought down but that pain will still arise. Or looking at animals, they don't "verbalize" and yet they suffer. So it seems Dependent Origination has a little more universality than mere verbal distinction. So I would reverse it, the description (DO) is explaining a regular occurrence i.e. how suffering arises.
I read this article by Jay L. Garfield the other day. He also seems to make the case that 1) is what Nagarjuna refutes, but not 2), namely regularity or conditionality. This is my view as well. I will copy & paste and highlight the parts pertaining to the topic at hand:...
You seemed to be arguing pretty strongly for causation in the posts above. You finally come around? :-)
Is this also what you mean by conditionality, or do you have another interpretation as for the middle way between inherent causality and inherent chaos?
As long as regularity in terms of arising is also seen to be regularity in terms of passing away. BTW The middle can be found between other fixed dualistic extremes i.e. between skepticism and credulity, between black and white (there is only lighter and darker gray). :-)
e: "If you sat down just one time and tried to be still for 30 minutes, you would realize pretty quickly the regular reoccurring pain at your knee aint a "verbal designation"."
I agree, the sensation of physical pain, so to speak, doesn't seem to me to be a verbal designation. That's why I find it valuable to speak about suchness. But that doesn't mean that pain has an essence, in the sense people who affirm "pain" usually reason conceptually. Because, as you said ["If there were inherent existence with causal power, how could suffering cease?"], if it had an essence, pain couldn't arise or cease.
"You seemed to be arguing pretty strongly for causation in the posts above. You finally come around? :-)"
I hope so! I don't think I have argued for 1, that is, for causal powers that are inherent in things. I'm sorry if it has seemed that way. What I have said is that when one verbally designates things, that is, when one, in an arbitrary manner, chops up experience into digital and manageable chunks, then a kind of regularity seems to appear. But then if one stops to verbally designate in that way, it it becomes senseless to speak about a regularity.
Like, if you sit and meditate and you have a pain in your knee, if there are no verbal designations, then it doesn't make any sense to say that X causes pain; there is simply a river-like flow of impressions (so to speak). And because "pain" isn't chopped up into a digital chunk, it can't be identified in time and space, and therefore not in any causal nexus. (Experientially, it's more like the pain is undifferentiated, it's not more this than that. In Hua Yen they talk about a kind of infinite inter-penetration. Furthermore, this is why a buddha's omniscience is possible, insofar as one likes to play with such concepts. Nothing has an own-essence, therefore, looking at or hearing one thing, you literally simultaneously hear/smell/feel/know/taste/see everything.)
"As long as regularity in terms of arising is also seen to be regularity in terms of passing away."
Well, yes. Of course. For me, because of regularity, our verbally designated things always seem to arise and pass away. Arising inevitably implies passing away, and vice versa.
Peace,
Dawid
Hey Dawid,
Thanks for the reply...I figured we would not be so far off once we chatted long enough.
In Hua Yen they talk about a kind of infinite inter-penetration. Furthermore, this is why a buddha's omniscience is possible, insofar as one likes to play with such concepts. Nothing has an own-essence, therefore, looking at or hearing one thing, you literally simultaneously hear/smell/feel/know/taste/see everything.)
Like one big omniscient mind eh? ;-)
peace
e
"Like one big omniscient mind eh? ;-)"
A huge one.
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