PeterJ

Ah. I see we mean different things by 'contradiction'. I would include logical contradictions as well as any that arise by comparison with nature. This is becasue I think philosophy is relevant to science. But there's too many topics going on at once here so I won't pursue the point.

Maybe we should disinguish betwen the God of the old and new testaments. Many would say that the NT was supposed to do away with the former, that old anthopomorphic God who could be angry and sad, good and evil and so forth. I'm with Zolar V on most of this. It seems relevant that in one non-canonical source Jesus says that 'sin, as such, does not exist.' My interpretation would have evil as also not existing.

An axiom that can be refuted in logic is not a good place to start a theory, imho. But you're right, it's your choice whether to take the results of reasoned analysis as a guide to truth or to ignore them. I would debate the fact that the maths is consistent and suggest that its inconsistencies are usually just buried in the foundations. I'm not sure how any of this bears on light-speed etc. I have no opinion on that one. Agreed. Science does not have to be philosophically sound. Scientists can define science however they want. That's their right. Just don't expect me to abandon my reason in this way. Exactly. While the basic assumption of philosophy is that we should not make assumptions. It is a very carefully considered idea. It goes wrong in the details since it does not follow the idea through, and so ends up in an infinite regress of worlds, but the idea that physicists would not be able to tell that they are in the Matrix works. If it did not work then Buddhism's metaphysical scheme would be scientifically falsifiable. Descartes made the same point by reference to evil demons. All the filmakers did was make the demons into aliens. Physics, as usually defined, cannot test the claim that we live in a Matrix-like world. It must simply assume we do or do not, as you say. To say that a phenomenon is in some sense unreal is not to say that it does not exist at all, or that it does not obey laws, or that natural science is useless. No need to be defensive, the idea is not anti-physics, just a recognition of its limits. We can all look at the world and see that it obeys laws. The idea is more subtle, and there are no telling objections to it. We cannot object to it without abandoning physics for logical analysis, and this is why physics must take the reality or unreality of things as an axiom rather than a result. Physics has every right to take the reality of its phenomena as axiomatic, of course, but it has no right to inflict this axiom on anyone else, and to inflict it on philosophy would be impossible. The idea does not work when we analyse it. This is not me being pig-headed, it's just the way things are. There are physicists on both sides of the fence on the reality question so I don't see this as a disagreement about physics, just about which axiom would give us the best theories. Being dogmatic about unproven axioms does not seem a good way forward.

Hold on. This is not right. I think you'll find that it is the former assumption that leads to contradictions, not the latter. The problem may appear as the 'problem of attributes', Zeno's paradoxes etc.. It disappears only when we say that the things whose behaviour we measure are in some sense unreal. If physics were to prove that these things are real, are actually 'things', then it would have finally proved that the universe is paradoxical. The premise of the film 'The Matrix' is that physicists working within the Matrix would have no reason to doubt that their world is completely real. This premise works because physics takes the reality of the world for granted. This is a choice. It is not because the opposite idea is logically absurd. If the opposite idea were absurd then the plotline of the film would not have worked. If philosophy is relevant to physics, as it blatantly obviously is, in my opinion, then we cannot take it for granted that the things we measure are completely real. Logic does not endorse this idea. It is paradoxical. Hence we have all sorts of two worlds or dual-aspect theories in philosophy, forced on us by the logic of the situation, by which these measurable things are unreal in some sense or other. If realistic theories did not give to contradictions philosophy would be a whole lot easier. It is my belief that physics would go better if it conceded this point to philosophy.

If there is any sense at all in this language, Dekan, which I doubt, then I would much prefer the idea that atoms are made out of God. It would not be much of a God who only appears after someone else has created the atoms. An idea I once explored is gravity as a repulsive force. I'm told that one French scientist put forward a fairly well developed theory early in the last century, and the idea makes a lot of sense to me. It seems an interesting way to account for expansion, with or without an initial Bang. The repulsive force at any point in space would be infinite or infinitessimal, depending on how we look at it, since it would be repulsed infinitely strongly from all directions of space out to the edge of its light cone. If there are no other objects local to a body in space, then the forces acting on it would be statistical and mostly cancel each other out. It would stay still in relation to the rest of the universe. Where there are objects local to each other, standing out against the background, then they would appear to be attracted. The two objects would shield each other from the repulsive force acting from their respective directions and so would be pushed towards each other. I'm not sure why this would be a crazy idea. Would it work? Is there a test that could decide between gravity as attraction or repulsion? I would have expected them to be equivalent and equally useful theories. So it ought to make no difference which way we look at it. But I wonder. What if this way of looking at gravity, or extra way, would allow us to make more sense of expansion, dark matter and so forth. Just musing.

Tar - Yes, I see what you mean. But we can have a concept of a unicorn, so an idea does not have to have a correlate in the world. People who argue for the non-existence of God presumably have a concept of HIm that allows them make this claim. Anyway, I still think that physicists are within their rights to refuse to speculate as to what their theories are describing, unless maybe it's their day off. It's a limitation of physics, but without a limitation we wouldn't be able to define it. It may not be enough for you or me, or even for many physicists, but we are allowed to wander off into metaphyscis if we want to. We just can't call it physics. No?

I think if we believe that God might be made of atoms then we are a long way from understanding anything about religion. Still, it's fun to mock it. But I think the OP is right, the idea that God is made of atoms is utterly idiotic.

I hope it's okay to barge in on the space discussion. I had some thoughts. I think we have to concede that physics has no need for an underlying metaphysic or ontology. This follows from its definition. By definition it is not the study of metaphysics and ontology. If we want to put some flesh on the bones of physical theories then we must venture into metaphysics. A physical or 'scientific' theory cannot be fundamental for then it would be metaphysical, and so physicists have no responsibility for speculating about whether 'space' is a substance, or even as to whether 'matter' is a substance, or even exactly what the term 'substance' actually stands for. This is for those whose interests extend to metaphysics, consciousness studies and so forth. I don't think we can argue that physics should include metaphysics, even though it is pretty useless in philosophy for its failure to make predictions about fundamental principles. I can see that space need not be any more than a concept for physics, and that the idea of it curving and bending and so forth is no more than a convenient visual metaphor for the mathematics, and thus that we cannot ask within physics what space actually 'is'. But we might still ask why everything isn't in the same place. What prevents this? If space is not 'res extensa' then it is not extended. But if space is not extended then what is? Was it Wheeler who said that time is what stops everything happening at once? So what is it that stops everything being in the same place? Extension? Of what? Space? But space is a concept. The only things a concept can keep apart is other concepts. It would follow that the phenomena that space keeps apart are also concepts. To me extension is a more baffling idea than 'space', which takes extension for granted and so disguises the more difficult problem. I don't think any idea of space can make sense except in the context of an idea of extension that makes sense. Here I find it hard to tell where physics ends and metaphysics begins. I believe that the answer to the nature of extension might be indicated by 'nonlocal' correlations, but I won't go there. I only dare talk about physics on philosophy forums.

Given the confusion of science as to the nature of Nature, as it were, the incomprehensibility of the way we have to describe it, I would certainly hope that science has more progress ahead of itself than behind.

Yes, this would be true at times. Very obviously so for the Church of Rome. In general though there are said to be no secrets. The knowledge at issue is not secret. It is just a question of whether we want to learn it or not. There is also, or course, the fact that some knowledge is dangerous if one acquires it before one has a certain degree of self-control. We don't teach teenagers how to make bombs, but the knowledge is not a secret. I have yet to find a prophet or sage who says that their knowledge is secret. Usually they appear to be trying desperately to pass it on to other people, or show them how to acquire it, on the basis that it is not at all secret. When Jesus says that the way to Heaven is through him, this is not the partisan claim that everyone must become a believer in the Bible. It is the claim that to reach Heaven we must become like him. Gnostic Christians aim to become Jesus, Buddhist try to become Buddha, Muslim's try to become Mohammed etc. The idea is that we must walk the walk, and that talking the talk is not a substitute. Then we acquire the knowledge we used to think was secret. Jesus would be a 'true man', and becoming one would be the way to attain Heaven, Nirvana etc. We should not interpret the idea that the only way is 'through Jesus' as meaning that we need to become Christians to succeed. Thaty would mean nobodt succeeded before he was born, assuming he was an historical and not mythological figure. As for the priests, I think they are often best ignored. Jesus criticises the pharisees for the way they prevent people from gaining the knowledge which is their birthright, and I rather unhistorically tend to equate the pharisees with the priests. I wish all these discussions of religion did not take mainstream Roman Christianity and its allied offshoots as their target. It is largely discredited in philosophy and science, and here, where we are allowed to be heretical since all religion is assumed to be nonsense, we might do better to focus on more plausible interpretations of the NT.

"The reason why our sentient, percipient, and thinking ego is met nowhere within our scientific world picture can be easily indicated in seven words: because it is itself that world picture. It is identical with the whole and therefore cannot be contained in it as part of it. But of course, here we knock against the arithmetical paradox; there appears to be a great multitude of these conscious egos, the world, however, is only one. This comes from the fashion in which the world-concept produces itself. The several domains of "private" consciousness overlap. The region common to us all where they all overlap is the construct of the "real world around us." With all that an uncomfortable feeling remains, prompting such questions as; is my world really the same as yours? Is there one real world to be distinguished from its pictures introjected by way of perception into every one of us? And if so, are these pictures like unto the real world or is the latter, the world "in itself," perhaps very different from the one we perceive? Such questions are ingenious, but, in my opinion, very apt to confuse the issue. They have no adequate answers. They are all, or lead to, antimonies springing from the one source, which I called the arithmetical paradox; the many conscious egos from whose mental experiences the one world is concocted. … There are two way out of the the number paradox, both appearing rather lunatic from the point of view of present scientific thought (based on ancient Greek thought and thus thoroughly "Western"). One way out is the multiplication of the world in Leibnitz's fearful doctrine of monads: every monad to be a world by itself, no communication between them; the monad "has no windows," it is "incommunicado." That they all agree with each other is called "pre-established harmony". … There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth, there is only one mind. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not only the Upanishads. The mystically experienced union with God regularly entails this attitude unless it is opposed by strong existing prejudices;…" Erwin Schrödinger The Oneness of Mind

Erm. Since when did science become able to prove that 'mystical experience' is a result of neoropathology? This claim is not even slightly scientific. It is pseudo-scientific hand-waiving. I see no scientific definition for 'mystical experience', and even the word 'experience' causes endless trouble. The simple fact is that 'science' as you are defining it is incapable of establishing the existence of experience. The idea that it has anything worthwhile to say about this or that kind of experience is daft. You're speaking on behalf of your own view, not that of science, and so your put-down misses the mark. This sort of wild stuff does science no favours. It is your view and that is all. Fair enough.

Tar - Nice one. A surprising number of people do not see this crucial fact about metaphysics, even though once we have it seems quite obvious.

The point is not a complicated one. Lots of people think that the Reimann hypothesis and the background-dependent problems are undecidable. It would not follow that they have been decided. The question of whether metaphysical questions are undecidable is not in itself undecidable. Do you think I'm making this up as I go along? What logical 'binds'? I see none. I fear they may be more problematic than you think. Russell's paradox, more properly Cantor's, was solved by George Spencer Brown, as Russell acknowledged, by adopting the view that you are currently arguing against, once having translated it into mathematics. It is an important problem in metaphysics, and probably cannot be underestimated. No contradictions and no strawmen, but I agree that it's possible to miss the sense of even the simplest of sentences. In person we have more clues to go on. Wandering around forums I sometimes think it is 'I'll listen to what I want you to say so that I can disagree with you, and not what you actually say, and never mind what you mean". Btw, I agree that philosophy and science are inextricable and that there are no true contradictions, so we needn't argue about that. I assume that you are not aware that the demonstrable logical indefensibility of extreme metaphyscial psotions is the entire justifaction for Priest and Routkley's 'dialethism', a view for which the world would contradict itself, and for Melhuish 'paradoxical universe', and for McGinn's 'mysterianism', and for Chalmers' 'naturalistic dualism', and for ... well, I just don't know why you won't accept that this is a well known result. But I won't go on pushing the point.

Okay. It strikes me as true, and I think you would have to admit that the layman is usually best to go with what's been checked by peers and published than a casual chat. I think he means that metaphysics and theoretical physics are impossible to conceptually disentagle. I just happened to remember the remark. I already gave the point, and listed these philosophers as being in agreement on it. Or I thought I did. Everyone agrees that metaphysical questions are dilemmas. It is a result of metaphysics. I'm actually confused as to why you're not accepting this. David Chalmers, Paul Davies, Colin McGinn, the list goes on, they all agree about this. It is simply unavoidable. Try deciding a metaphysical question and you'll find it's undecidable. It is true that philosophers disagree wildy about how to interpret this result, and this may disguise the level of agreement about the result. Many refuse to consider that this is a proof of what is actually true in reality, preferring to endorse, say, materialism or idealism rather than nondualism, but they all reach it. That's why there's so much confusion. It's why so many people think metaphysics is unimportant. Yes, okay. But that is not quite an answer to my question. Is QM a theory if it does not have an interpretation? I don't have a view on this, just want to know the official one. Fine. I'm not arguing with any of this. Would this process of generating alternative interpretations belong in science or philosophy or both? If they are dinstinct stand-alone disciplines we must be able to draw a distinct line between them. I'm exploring whether it is possible to do this.

Two questions that seem relevant. Would it be possible to say that physics establishes the conditions our models must meet, while philosophy is about making the models? I know physicists make models, but I wonder if model-making really counts as physics for the purposes of this discussion. Then, is QM a theory? Or is it a just a description of what happens? What I wonder is whether QM in itself is a theory, or whether an interpretation would also be required in order for it to become a theory.

Yes. Banesh Hoffman writes in his book on QM that we cannot have physics without metaphysics, we can only have too much or too little of it. Tar - You say ...."Philosophy's claim that all positive metaphysical positions are logically indefensible" IS a positive claim in the first place. Yes it is. But it is not a positive result in the sense intended. What I'm saying here is bog standard stuff. Metaphysics cannot produce a positive result. End of story. Then ...."And might be considered a metaphysical position. Which would mean basically that you can not claim anything at all, ever." Yes, it is a metaphysical position. How would that invalidate my claim that it is a correct metaphysical position? ...."And I do not think that is either the goal of philosophy nor it's final conclusion.* Obviously not. This is not a matter of opinion, however, but of logic. I can point to two proofs of my position and I've never come across even an attempt at a counter-proof. It is widely accepted that extreme metaphysical positions are logically indefensible. It's why metaphysics is difficult to do. Wittgenstein, Carnap, Bradley, Kant, Hegel, Heidegger, Brown, Heraclitus, Spinoza etc etc., are you going to fight them all? I think there is a misunderstanding of what I'm saying. Maybe I'm saying it unclearly. This result of metaphysics is well known, has been for millenia.

Tar - I see my reply to your objections came across a bit high handed even for me, esp. the bit about the books. I just meant that the view you are objecting to is not easier to understand than quantum mechanics, and it is even quite difficult to make reasonable objections to it. While it seems okay to answer some objections here, to fight its corner so to speak, that it will not automatically be assumed to be religious nonsense, it does not seem okay to start explaining it at any length. That would require discussing issues that have no place on this forum. I believe that the question of whether philosophy is relevant to science can be settled by examining philosophy's claim that all positive metaphysical positions are logically indefensible. If this is not testable in the natural sciences, at least to some extent, then the relevance of philosophy to those sciences, or at least the relevance of its results, would be very limited. It is for scientists to decide whether it is testable, of course, but it seems to me you guys test it every day.

According to the gemeral view here all philophical results would not fall under the umbrella of science. This is why science cannot have a fundamental theory, for if it were fundamental it would be a metaphysical theory. But no matter. Philosophy proves that all positive metaphyscial positions are logically indefensible. Whether they are false is for empiricism to determine, but at least we can work out that they don't make sense. I mention this because I feel it is the quite likely to be the most important result produced by philosophy. Other expressions of the result are that metaphysics does not produce a positive result, or, in Kant's words, 'all selective conclusions about the world as a whole are undecidable'. If scientists want to argue that they cannot test this result then I'd be surprised, given its global implications. But then I'm often surprised.

I don't think it matters whether it's philosophy or not. What matter is whether it is a result or not. What I mean by a 'philosophical result' is something that philosophy can prove, not just anything a philosopher proposes. The theory of philostogen is scientific but it is not a scientific result, and cannot be used to illustrate the pointlessness of science. Philosophy should be judged on what it proves, not on what this or that philosopher has conjectured. To use a failed scientific or philosophical conjecture as evidence of the uselessness of either discipline would be an odd thing to do. Still, if A's theory was philosophical, as you suggest, and if it fails the tests, then at least your argument supports the idea that philosophical theories can sometimes be tested empirically, which would be my view also.

If science tested Aristotle's orbital theory and it failed, then according to many people here that would prove it was a scientific theory. It would be self-defeating to argue that philosophical theories cannot be tested and then go on to argue that there is a philosophical theory that has been tested and failed. Aristotle's orbits were a conjecture, not a result. Tar - I cannot answer your long post above chock full of scepticism. But I'll make a start... You begin ...."There you go again with the Shaman stuff. Like certain folks are "practitioners" of humaness and others are just farting around as something else.... Humbug. We are all human. Those of us who are...well, human..." Of course we are all human. That seems pretty obvious. On this we can agree. ..."What exactly is it that your practioner practices? Am I able to do this thing? Have I done it already? Could I have done it before, am not doing it now, but might do it again later?" Ah. So, you are dismissing a view that you have not looked into. This would explain the irrelevance of your objections. I'll be happy to argue the issues with you all day, but you give me nothing to get my teeth into. You have to know your enemy. ..."What if both the inward arrow and the outward arrow ARE important to me, and I have decided the outward arrow is more easily shared and verified, and the inward arrow is somewhat limited and not required to "fit" reality...." What makes you think that 'inner' knowledge is not required to fit reality? This is an assumption of yours, and it is because of this assumption that you do not test your assumption and instead oppose my view, which would be that your assumption is false. At present you have no objections that are troublesome, since your assumption prevents you investigating what you're objecting to. I'm happy to bat the issues back and forth, but I can't actually read the books for you. ...."And if its just a matter of interpretation, and I am "already aware", then what reality is the Buddah awake to, that I have my eyes closed to? Is it something only Shamans can do? Or is it a matter of definition?...." The idea is do away with interpretation. Interpreted evidence is not certain knowledge. And no, of course it's not something only shamans can do. It's like golf. Anyone can do it, but nobody can do it without a bit of practice. But I don't think this is the place to get into the details. Maybe somewhere else. I'll quote a useful passage from Alan Wallace and leave it there. "Conceptually unstructured awareness which is nondual from the phenomena that arise to it is regarded as the ultimate reality, and the realisation of such nondual consciousness is the final goal of contemplative practice. In this experience, the very distinction between public, external space, in which physical phenomena appear to occur, and private, internal space, in which mental phenomena appear to occur, dissolves into a "mysterious space"," which is the very nonduality between the conceptually constructed external and internal spaces. The ultimate nature of objective phenomena, therefore, is found to be none other then the ultimate nature of subjective phenomena; and that is the nonduality of appearances and awareness. When one achieves perfect realisation of this state, in which there is no longer any difference between one's awareness during and after formal meditation sessions, it is claimed that one's consciousness becomes boundless in terms of the scope of its knowledge, compassion, and power. Hence, the contemplative pursuit of such realisation is said to be the most sublime of sciences." Edit: Apologies to the moderators. I won't add more OT stuff here. .

Sorry, but I see it differently. The results of philosophy can be tested and are tested on a daily basis by physicists. For example, all attempts to experimentally prove Materialism fail. No substance can be found at the heart of matter. Or not yet. The testing continues. If nothing is found this will vindicate logical anaysis. If scientists had found atoms to be billiard ball planetariums then philosophy would have been tested abd failed, and many other findings would have the same consequences. I'd say it is not obvious that science tests philosophical theories mainly because if they are any good they never fail.

Thanks for the thumbs up. Appreciated. Yes, it's a science forum, but it is worth noting that Erwin Schroedinger argued for forty years that the writers of the Upanishads had got it right, and never found any difficulty reconciling their description of the world with what he knew of physics and biology. He is well worth reading on these topics. If I have time I'll dig something out and post it.

One cannot have a thought that is not ones own, that much is pretty clear. The idea would be not that we do not exist, but that we do not exist in the way we usually think we do. It's rather like the view physicists have of physical objects. Heisenberg points out that we can say equally 'here is a table' and 'here is not a table', in such a way that QM would require a modification of Aristotle's tertium non datur rule. Same principle almost, or a useful analogy. It's not that tables do not exist, but that they do not exist in the way we generally think they do. The distinction thing would be crucial. It is the basis of the philosophical scheme (and, of course, also an empirical result). For this view no distinction should be reified. Thus the distinctions which create the dilemmas of metaphysics disappear along with the dilemmas. Nearly all philosophers discover that metaphysics does not endorse a positive or partial metaphysical theory, and here would be the 'esoteric' explanation for why this is so. They would all be false. You could say that mysticism predicts the failure of metaphysics to reach a positive result. We are in the realms of ordinary philosophy here, and there is even some relevance to physics. For instance, physics cannot prove that anything really exists, and Buddhism would give the reason why. or, at least, it proposes a solution that works, whether or not it is correct. At any rate, this view entails that there is not really a 'you' that is distinct from 'me', or only if we are not aware of who we really are. This provides a basis for ethics, as is well explained by Schopenhauer. (I've got a quote from him on this I'll try to find). I'm wary about saying more here since it does not seem to be the place. For a fuller (and less hasty) explanation I could refer you elsewhere by PM if you want me to. Immortal is quite right, of course, to say that by analysis we cannot fully understand this solution, but we can understand it well enough to make a well-informed judgement as to whether it would work or not. If we are practicing Zen then all this would be useless waffle when it comes to the practice, but for most forms of Buddhism analysis is a vital part of meditation and it would not be right to dismiss it as a waste of time. If we do not know whether Buddhism, more generally mysticism, stands up to philosophical analysis, then metaphysics allows us to test the doctrine against logic and reason and make an intial judgement, since here the issues are fairly clear-cut. Sorry, this is rather muddled. Note to myself- must do better. It might help to refer outside this disussion. Here are three extracts that seem relevant and helpful. The first clarifies Kant's position and says something about the 'unreality' of phenomena. The second shows the Buddha paying a lot of attention to an anlysis of the evidence of his senses, and dismissing the idea that consciousness can survive apart from a body, and the third says something about distinctions, unity and knowledge. "The history of Western philosophy is filled with discussion, in one guise or another, of what is often called the 'transcendental' subject and object. The terms invoke the idea of a hidden self behind the phenomenal self and a hidden object behind the phenomenal object. Although Kant positioned the transcendental 'things-in-themselves' as methodological concepts rather than as metaphysical entities, the tendency since Kant has often been to reify them and then debate their objective existence. Idealists have typically wanted to exclude the transcendental object from philosophical discussion on the grounds of its alleged non-existence, while materialists have generally wanted to exclude the transcendental subject on the same grounds. The idea behind modern phenomenalism would be that neither the transcendental object or subject exists in any concrete sense. Instead, one would postulate various possible combinations of phenomenal objects, the most coherent, complex and structured of which could be viewable as constituting emergent conceptual minds such as our own. In this case, the universe could be seen as fundamentally rooted in phenomena or mind. As a result, there would be a tendency to reify mental phenomena, as in Berkeleian objective substance monism. However, I would argue that to do so would be as much of a mistake as to reify physical entities, since even the most basic mental properties can be shown to have a conceptual, and hence relative, non-objective aspect. In this idea's original context, mainstream Buddhist philosophy, one would say that the reason to avoid endowing anything, including a qualitative state or a self, with the property of intrinsic, independent reality is that no object can be logically established without implicit or explicit reference to the causes and conditions which enable it to exist - including its parts and attributes and the very fact that a consciousness is required to mentally designate it a distinct entity in the first place. This principle is known as 'dependent origination' or 'the interdependent nature of reality'. " (Edward Barkin, 'Relative Phenomenalism', Journal of Consciousness Studies Vol 10 No. 8 (2003)) // "With his heart thus serene, made pure, translucent, cultured, devoid of evil, supple, ready to act, firm and impeturbable, he applies and bends down his mind to the insight that comes from knowledge. He grasps the fact: "This body of mine has form, it is built up of the four elements, it springs from father and mother, it is continually renewed by so much boiled rice and juicy foods, its very nature is impermanence, it is subject to erasion, abrasion, dissolution, and disintegration; so also consciousness is bound up with it and depends on it." (The Buddha. Samanna-phala Sutta. Trans. Trevor Ling) // " After death there is no consciousness: this is what I say.' Thus spake Yahñavalka. But Maitreyi said: 'In this, good sir, you have thrown me into confusion in that you say that after death there is no consciousness.' And Yajnavalka said: 'There is nothing confusing in what I say. This is surely as much as you can understand now.' For where there is any semblence of duality, then does one smell another, then does one speak to another, then does one think of another, then does one understand another. But when all has become one's very Self, then with what should one hear whom? With what should one see whom? With what should one hear whom? With what should one speak to whom? With what should one think of whom? With what should one understand whom? With what should one understand Him by whom one understands this whole universe? With what indeed should one understand the Understander?" (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad)

Tar - Bear in mind that for the 'nondual' view there would be two worlds, but the two worlds would, at the limit, be one. We cannot escape reality, we are in it. But we can see it for what it is, and not fall for the wysiwyg view proposed by so many philosophers. We would not be disowning reality for a dream, we would be doing exactly the opposite. Hence the idea of the Matrix, which is based on Buddhist ideas. Holding this view, or seeing the world in this way, is not to abandon it but to embrace it. We can note that Jesus says the kingdom of heaven is laid out on the Earth but men do not see it. He does not say heaven requires leaving the planet or no longer enjoying the stars at night. You don't like the flight inwards, so you choose the flight outwards. But for the practioner both the inward and outward arrows would be important. This idea that we should 'disown our attachment to our senses', as you put it, is not quite right. Our senses cannot be disowned, we'd starve to death in no time. This is especially true when we consider that for Buddhists the mind is counted as a sense. What we are asked to do is examine the process by which our senses operate and produce mental phenomenona, and not to simply take those phenomena as given. The senses are not ignored, and Budhhism's Abbidhamma pitaka gives an extensive analysis of their operation and results. Immortal - You write - 'Yes of course we can know about everything that there is'. Hmm. Again you claim more than I think you mean to. It is one thing to say that the literature claims we can know everything there is to know. This is verifiable by anyone who can read. But it is quite another to state that we can do this. I feel that appeals to personal experience are out of place in a science forum even if they are genuine.