PeterJ

I can agree with all of your first para. I happen to think you are wrong to assume that the authors of the books you are reading never know what they are talking about, but on the rest we can agree. Hooray. To understand this idea of being here and not here at the same time, that we both exist and do not exist as Heraclitus puts it, or 'do not really exist' as a Buddhist might put it, which is possible to some extent by analysis without inner revelations, I would recommend reading about Nagarjuna's doctrine of Two Worlds or Truths, the philosophical foundation for 'Middle Way' Buddhism. The second para I find unnecessarily pessimistic and not so correct. Are you sure your body can operate without the presence of awareness? How would you prove it? Then, the idea that liberated people have no awareness of their bodies does not fly. They wouldn't be able to get through the day. They must struggle for survival along with the rest of us. One important factual point. There is a very clear concensus on the falsity of monism and dualism. Unless both of the ideas are false then Buddhism and the entire wisdom tradition is a pack of lies. This is not a matter of what we can and cannot know, but of what the doctrine claims. Nondualism, as is implied by its name, states that dualism is false, and monism would be just another form of dualism. On this issue the literature of mysticism is crystal clear. In the end all distinctions would be false, and this would be why we must be said to both exist and not-exist. When we do not actually experience this truth in our lives then we are 'Believing We Exist. When we do see it, at all times, then this would the shaman's 'Awakened Awarenesss', a state which is not called 'Believing We Don't Exist' as we might expect, but refers to our awakeness to the fact that there is a sense in which we do not exist. Thus when the Buddha is stopped while walking down the road by someone struck by his appearance, who asks him for an explanation of it, and asks what is so special about him, he answers by saying only that he is awake.

Immortal, no offence meant, but are you quite sure you can speak with such authority? Some of your explanation made me think you could have been a little more modest. '... there has to be a reality which is fundamental and which we can not know of.' I suppose it depends what you mean, but for most interpretations this would seem nothing to do with the perennial philosophy. It's the phrase 'we can not know of'. The entire message of the view you are claiming to represent is that there is a knowledge beyond that which 'we' can 'know of'. I'd rather believe 'Aurobindo, for whom 'The Unknown is not the Unknowable'. You continue, '...this might interest you as you want to understand what we know of and how we know what.' Did you really mean to suggest that you personally understand how we understand things, and know how we know what we know? If so, then I apologise for finding it difficult to believe you. I believe that this knowledge is possible, where many people here would doubt it, but it is usually more obvious from their words when a person has such knowledge. It's not your view that bothers me, it's your claim to represent my view when it is not the same as yours. How could you know how we know things, which would require knowing just about everything there is to know, and at the same time know that there is a reality, or a part of our reality, about which you know nothing whatsoever and never will? It doesn't seem add up.

Okay. I quoted the Shaman's view regarding the two forms of consiousness, and said of the way they were named, 'This says it all.' You replied that I could not say this unless I knew exactly what the Shaman meant by these names, which would require having the same knowledge as him. I see why you objected. You assumed that I was claiming to know what he knows. But I wouldn't do this whether I do or not. I should be more clear, and will try to be from now on. I should have added 'about this worldview'. What I meant was that the use of these two names, 'Believing We Exist' and 'Awakened Awareness', neatly captures or summarises the view that I was describing. These names suggest unusually clearly that for the mystics many of the OPs ideas would have some truth in them. I speculate that they would be interchangable with 'Samsara and 'Nirvana'. I suppose I'm trying to suggest that he does not need to reinvent the wheel.

Aristotle's circular orbits were not a philosophical result. Obviously not, since otherwise philosophers would still be arguing for circular orbits. They were a conjecture.

Tar - I'm not sure how you can say that you take mysticism seriously when what you say contradicts it so directly. Feint praise methinks. For instance, you say - "I don't find eastern philosophy implausable. It is most likely absolutely correct, as is, in my thinking, everybody's philosophy." This comment makes no sense to me at all. Have I misunderstood it? It seems to say that the truth is whatever we want to believe it is. This view would understandably horrify a scientist. If you mean there's some truth in all philosophies then maybe you're right, but all of our philosophies will be wrong except one. At any rate, this postmodern idea is in direct opposition to the idea that mysticism is worth taking seriously. It's doctrine is either true or false, and it is not a matter of opinion. I see your problem is, "the same problem I have with everybody's philosophy (including my own), and that is, that they are the ones that see it correctly, and everybody else is missing the point." But of course they think they see it correctly. Indeed, often they say they know they do. Why else would they argue for the truth of their view? Are you saying it is not possible to know the truth? This would make 'eastern' philosophy a load of rubbish. It seems to contradict even your own view about knowledge. My arrogant opinion is that the reason why philosophy gets such a bad rap is that the way we do it is wrong and certain to fail. Physics was transformed in the early twentieth century, yet philosophy remains as it was in 1750, as if nothing at all has happenened in physics in the meantime. Clearly it is time for philosophy to move on, yet here we are, still writing footnotes to Plato. It's not surprising that we tend to dismiss our philosophy for being innefective. It obviously is. But this is not a criticism of philosophy, just our approach to it. Physics has never contradicted a philosophical result, so there is no reason to suppose our philosophical reasoning cannot be trusted, or is not a safe guide to the truth. As far as I can tell it is a precise and accurate way to establish the nature of the world, and I would say that it is a terrible mistake and massively counterproductive for scientists to assume it is not. Trouble is, professional philosophy is in such a mess that it is all too easy to make this assumption.

Yes. I wouldn't disagree that we would have to 'go beyond the senses' to actually know. But I think we can think about what might be true. Space and time only exist for the senses, so to go beyond the senses would entail going beyond space and time. If it is possible to do this, as you suggest, then space and time are not fundamental, and some phenomenon accessible to us by some other means than our senses would have to be prior. I think this is pretty much Kant's and Hegel's reasoning, by which they arrive at this pre-spatiotemporal phenomenon as a unity, so it is certainly possible to theorise about this and yet still allow that you are right, we cannot actually know our theory is true without empirical knowledge. But this is true of all theories. Yes. It is a big mistake in my opinion also. But I would not agree that an hypothesis is metaphysical if it can be neither proved nor disproved. It is usually quite easy to disprove metaphysical statements. That's the whole problem with them. It is not that we can't decide which of, say, Materialism and Idealism is false and which is true. It is that we can falsify both of them quite easily. Your view is common, but to me it seems incorrect. Carnap rejected metaphysics because he could not find a metaphysical position he could not refute. Hmm. I think Kant may have been closer to agreeing with you than you might imagine. Note how quickly Hegel extended his view to reach your position. For what seems to be your view, to know things as they really are would be to know the voidness of phenomena, which is not far from what Kant proposed.

If Aristotle set back astronomy by 1500 years then astronomers must be complete rubbish at doing not just philosophy abut also astronomy.

Immortal - You misunderstand me. I was merely repeating what the sages say, not claiming omniscience. They regularly speak about these things, as you know. To speak apophatically about the nature of reality is not to avoid speaking about it entirely. As Lao tsu points out, we must speak about it even if speaking is inadequate. Besides, it would be self-defeating to argue that we cannot speak about something and then speak about it as you do here. In order to explain why we cannot speak about it we would have to speak about it. As it is, I can explain why we cannot speak about this unity, and a person could grasp the explanation without any need for special knowledge. It's just metaphysics. But this would not be at all the same thing as explaining what it actually is, which would, as you say, be impossible. After all, we talk about pain all the time. When I say that this term 'unity' in mysticism would not mean 'One', I am stating a plain and simple fact, one that can be established quite easily. The literature is there for anyone to read. As for the falsity of dualism and monism, you'll see that I was laying out what mysticism claims, not what I myself would claim. It so happens that I do believe both these metaphysical ideas are false, but I did not state that they are false. I try to write with rigour. Whether they are false would be an empirical matter. These ideas can be refuted in logic, however, and I'd be happy to state categorically that both of them are demonstrably absurd. Until we can decide their falsity empirically then we might as well use our reason to guide our theories, and we might as well discuss our calculations with each other. If all you are saying is that philosophising in the way that I was doing is ultimately a waste of time, since no real understanding can come from it, then of course, yes, I would agree completely. But we could hardly have a discussion of existence and consciousness and not talk about mysticism, which claims to explain both, or not unless we think it's all utter nonsense. Anyway, I think there is no need for us to argue. I'm well aware of the limits of language. It is perfectly possible to speak about the unity spoken of in mysticism without being a great sage. My comments are philosophical and can be backed up with philosophical argument, and not appeals to experience or faith, which would be out of order here. I brief, I only half agree with you.

Yes, I agree. Not sure about the relevance to my comments however. I did not suggest otherwise. Nice excerpt. I'm a fan, although I cannot always agree with him. As for Wittgenstein's comment, it never needed saying. Besides, Lao-tsu said it better.

Interesting. Would the the principle of least hypothesis be a philosophical or scientific idea? If it is philosophic then the argument is over.

It's a pity there is this widespread assumption that all Science needs to do to demolish Religion is to disprove God. Buddhist philosophers disproved him many centuries ago and it would be nice to move on. I suppose we were all brought up as monotheists so are inclined to see monotheism and religion as the same thing. But let's just be clear, many religious practitioners do not believe in the speculative God that is the target of so much criticism on this thread. This would include many Jews, Christians and Muslims. I wouldn't say that God is a straw-man, but refuting him would not be enough to defeat Religion, only certain religious dotrines, doctrines which have been the target of internal criticism within these religions since the day they were first put forward. If someone could disprove such a God once and for all then many religious people would applaud the loss of this naive idea. I still see no need for friction between Science and Religion. Is there an issue which forces us to choose only one approach? Is there even an issue on which they disagree? I've spent ten years looking for one and have had no luck so far.

Erm. Don't know what you mean by this. Am I not allowed to make statements unless I don't know what they mean? Do you believe that everyone who knows something you don't has got a bad attitude? How odd. Surely that can't be what you mean. The idea is that anybody can know this stuff about awareness and existence, and that includes you. That is is whole idea. I don't know where you get the idea it's priveledged knowledge. Nobody claims that. Or do you mean that this is an issue on which you would disagree with the 'eastern' view, and would argue that it is priveledged? Yes, that is a central claim of mysticism. It is one of the most public claims it makes. I don't know how you've missed it. The Buddha spent a lifetime making it. This objection to mysticism is a complete misunderstanding.

The idea that we can do theoretical physics without doing philosophy is so weird that it does not compute on my system. I simply cannot grasp how anyone could imagine that it's possible. I'm not being disengenious. I really don't get it. It would be like trying to do philosophy without doing physics. The dangers of doing physics without philosophy are there for all to see. We do not have a fundamental theory of anything and never will have one on this view, since a fundamental theory would require doing a bit of metaphysics. Tar - Good luck with Kant. He argues for the 'eastern' view that you find so implausible, although you might not notice this if you've already dismissed that view as not worth investigating because to you it 'doesn't mean anything'. I really do object to such comments. Do you suppose half the world is mad, and finds a meaning when there is none there? Or is it more likely that you haven't done it justice? Off-topic though so I won't bang on.

I think that the person who reaches Nirvana does not become aware that the universe is 'one thing', or not if we speak rigorously. It would not be 'One' and nor would it be a 'thing'. The sages commonly warn us against supposing the world is One, or that God is One, since this is monism, and as such is just a disguised form of dualism (One must be opposed to 'two', or 'me' etc.) What they discover, so it is said, is that the world is a unity. Here 'unity' would not mean 'One'. The phrase 'not two' is used in advaita vedanta, a phrase that denies plurality but which, we are constantly warned, does not mean 'One'. In Islam, likewise, we are warned against supposing that 'Al-Lah' is 'One'. 'Unity' often does mean 'One' when we use it, but not in mysticism. Thus 'Tao' is a reconciliation or transcendence of 'One' and 'Many', not one or the other. It would lie beyond such distinctions. It's subtle issue, but if we believe that mysticism claims the world is one then philosophically we miss the entire message of it. We fall back into a metaphysical muddle due to the logical indefensibility of monism. For nondualism both monism and dualism would be false, just as logic and reason suggest. There would be an original phenomenon, and as Kant speculates, and the OP, we would all have an immediate connection with it. Plotinus speaks of a hypersphere, where all points on the surface are connected immediately with the focal point. But this phenomenon would not be consciousness. It would be (as Kant again speculates) what is prior to consciousness. Perhaps 'pristine' or 'non-conceptual' awareness' would be something like it. Our common connection would be possible because we would not really be distinct entitites. Nothing would really exist apart from what we have in common, which would be the only non-contingent phenomenon. In mysticism, in Bradley's essay 'Appearance and Reality' for example, this phenomenon would be 'Reality'. All else would have only a dependent existence or would be 'epiphenomenal', existing as appearances but having no intrinsic existence. No little irreducible billiard balls at the heart of matter etc.. It may best be seen as theory of information. But generally the OP would be right acccording to this view. It would be what we have in common that is real and unchanging and not our differences, which would be contingent and temporary. Death would be the end of me, but then I was never really here in the first place. Shaman of the Pueblo Indians say that we have two staes of consciousness available to us, which in translation are 'Believing We Exist' and 'Awakened Awareness'. This says it all.

I think the problem that physicists and others often have with philosophy is not the discipline per se, but a problem with the way we do it in the west. The way we do it in the west is obviously wrong since we cannot solve any of the 'problems of philosophy', the many dilemmas that arise in metaphysics. No wonder many physicists are sceptical that there's any point in doing it. Many philosophers are equally sceptical, sometimes even more so. A philosophy that solves such problems might gain more respect, but that would seem to involve taking Lao-tsu seriously, and obviously we can't do that. So philosophy is written off as useless, and physics will be nonreductive forever. Schroedinger saw how to reconcile physics and philosophy but physicists do not take him seriously on this issue because, er, oh yes, that would mean taking Lao-tsu seriously. Davies also proposes the same reconciliation, but the same objection arises. As long as we refuse to consider the failure of mainstream western academic philosophy as a sign that we are doing it the wrong way then we will have to conclude that it is useless. And so it will be.

AC - Hi. Yes, this would be my view also. I was very suprised to read in a later post that you think you do not understand the religious epistemology, and thus by implication its ontology. Maybe you were being modest. I assumed you were something of an expert when I read this para. You argue here for the cosmological scheme of the Buddha and Lao-tsu, and some would would say of Jesus and Mohammed et al., but seem to be sceptical of it at the same time. Have you really not connected this thought about transcendence with the claims of the perennial philosophy? I'll mention some connections. The only metaphysic or worldview that is rigorously apophatic, such that the origin of contingent phenomena would in no case be 'this' or 'that', not even for 'existing' or 'not-existing', is a neutral metaphysical position, more commonly 'nondualism'. This assigns no partial properties to the original phenomenon. To the extent that this view is theistic, or is spoken of theistically, then 'God' would lie 'beyond the coincidence of contradictories', which is to say, beyond the categories of thought. To find such a phenomenon would require an examination of what comes before the categories, thus before thought. Kant proposed that this phenomenon, which is not an instance of a category, is the proper subject for rational psychology, and Buddhists certainly think so. Not for nothing is the Holy Grail of Celtic and Christian metaphor and myth said to have the power to dissolve all distinctions, allowing us to transcend this universe of phenomenal pairs of opposites. That the origin of mental and corporeal phenomena lies beyond the categories of thought is what the Buddhist philosopher-sage Nagarujna proves in his Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way many centuries before Kant, Hegel, Bradley and all. I think the problem with coming up with a scientific definition of God is that there isn't one. Any idea we can have of Him is false and thus bound to be unscientific. I mean, what are the chances of us trying to imagine God and actually getting it right?

Happened to notice this article just appearing on philpapers.com Ernâni Magalhães (2011). Presentism, Persistence and Composition. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92 (4):509-523. (Direct link) Pace Benovsky's ‘Presentism and Persistence,’ presentism is compatible with perdurantism, tropes and bundle-of-universals theories of persisting objects. I demonstrate how the resemblance, causation and precedence relations that tie stages together can be accommodated within an ersatzer presentist framework. The presentist account of these relations is then used to delineate a presentist-friendly account of the inter-temporal composition required for making worms out of stages. The defense of presentist trope theory shows how properties with indexes other than t may be said to exist at t. This involves an account of how times other than t exist at t, and how times may be multiply located at any given time. Benovsky's objection to bundles of universals is shown to assume that a bundle of properties must have the properties of its element properties.

Hmm. That surprises me, given the widespread support for presentism. I would have thought it was consistent with the data.

Okay. Let's hope I can find it. Or could you copy it over?

As I see it, if the past and future do not exist then the present 'instant' cannot have a duration. Same problem as for infinitessimals ('ghosts of departed quantities' etc). Hence one physicist argues against Zeno by citing the impossibility of 'instants'. So I don't really understand how is possible to have an experience of the present, and wonder whether in fact we do, or whether what seems to be an experience of the present is in fact a mixture of short-term memory and anticipation. Iow, our present experience in the world of change is some sort of fantasy. This chimes with the experience of those who study psychological time, which seems to be that when awareness becomes sufficiently, 'focused' or 'single-pointed' then time ceases to pass and is seen as a psychological phenomenon. Ditto space. Thus for the sage (so they say) there would be 'no other time than the time he is in.' Such a view would require a double-aspect approach to the universe, conceptually a little like the classical/quantum dualism, giving us a theory of 'two worlds' or 'two truths'. If such Buddhistic thoughts are unwelcome here just say so. I am not proselytising. But it does seem to me like we need some new ideas and this would be a source of a few. The Abbhidamma literature speaks extensively about the nature of time, but it is rarely honoured by any proper analysis by physicists. Maybe, just maybe, it would stand up to such an analysis. Davies has had a few mentions here and he speculates much the same, so while this may be a distasteful speculation it is probably not crackpottery. The 'mystical' view, by which I mean that derived for from what you guys generally take to be 'navel-gazing', would be, I think, that the reason why we cannot understand time and space is that we insist on reifying phenomena that have no true existence. Once we've done that we are inevitably unable to make sense of their existence or nature. Our initial axioms would be impossible to reconcile with the data. Just shooting the breeze...

If you made all this apparent by your use of language you'd meet less opposition. Even telling people they're 'wasting their time in foolish beliefs' is not consistent with 'offering your views for those who are interested'. This is clearly fighting talk. I can agree with some of what you say but find the extremism distasteful. Many so-say foolish evangelical Christians will live more Christian lives than you or I.

Your view is surprising to me. You believe in the existence of an anti-Christ and evil, which are not ideas that have much use outside of the orthodoxy that you so despise. It seems like cheating to believe some of their doctrine just in order to criticise the rest. Then you say that to believe in fantasy is evil, while clearly believing completely in your own, and are so completely sure that in your case it is not a fanmtasy that you feel able to denounce others as evil. Are you suggesting we burn them at the stake?

Asinine, I can agree with all of that. Some very good points. I'd just suggest that pseudo-religion is as much of a problem as pseudo-science. Your questions are all important and deserve answers. They all have answers, I think, but one has to navigate ones way through a lot of smoke and mirrors to get to them.

Yes. If Luther meant what I presume you think he meant, then this is a damning indictment of his religion. And perhaps many of his readers interpret his words to mean that we should never examine our religious beliefs with our God-given brains and minds. We must have been given them for some other purpose. But let's face it, there would be no religion without our brains and minds, and the idea is just plain daft. I prefer to read these words in such a way that they are not a crtiticsm of reason per se, but of the way it can so easily confuse us, especially if we are clever, and not a dismissal of reason as a useful and effective guide to truth, but a warning that reason has its limits as a means of acquiring knowledge, which is only what Aristotle and Kant tell us. If these were the words of a Zen master then this would be the only plausible interpretation. My feeling is that use the phrase 'anti-christ' in the question is not helpful, to put it mildly. Any chance of an edit? My answer to it would be that the idea of an anti-Christ is ad hoc. If you're asking whether the evangelical movement in the USA is helping the Christian cause, then I'd have to say I can't be sure. The relationship between religion and politics seems to distort and muddle the issues beyond all understanding. But I don't think they're trying to do the opposite, so my answer would have to be no.

I'm with you all the way on this one. It is impossible to make a sensible argument for religion when there is so much nonsense spoken about it to confuse the issues. It's embarrassing that so many people are prepared to evangelicise vigorously for a view they do not know is true, and for which thay have no supporting arguments other than to refer to a book. It is profoundly dishonest, however well motivated. Whatever happened to logic and reason? Why do so many people suppose that we must abandon our rationality when it comes to religion, as if religion is somehow unable to defend itself from rational scepticism? When the Europeans arrived in the Americas the natives were astonished to discover that they took their religion from a book and argued about like lawyers, and it's not much less astonishing today. If a person thinks religion is nonsense then I will disagree with them, but I will sympathise completely with the temptation to reach this conclusion, given the way so many of its proponents attempt to pass off book-learning as knowledge. Rant over...