Two different versions of you imply that there is one person. Otherwise what does “you” refer to?
If all you are is Accident then you cannot have any control over yourself or choice in what you do. You are just a cog in a vast machine…
To Rossum: If there is no substance then all language is equivocal and there is no common referent in communication. Ergo, everything Rossum has said is meaningless to those towards whom he speaks.
Only in his capacity as a creator; he would still have his own being, he simply would not have created anything so “creator” would not apply. Except in the case of the Christian God, who is the cause of his own Being because he is Being—saying he is the cause of his own being is actually redundant (our God being the primal unity theorized by Buddhists, all predicative language is inherently inaccurate in attempting to describe him).
Not necessarily; the Additive Identity property is the cause of the fact that N+0=N, but, in fact,both are timeless, since math is not a physical event.
Here you are conflating two senses of the word “create”; it can mean both “cause to come into being” and “cause to exist”, and it may be possible for a thing’s existence to need a cause (because it is not logically necessary) even if it has always existed. I’m not saying there is any such thing, but even if the universe were eternal it would still require a cause for its existence. That’s why Hindus believe in God.
Yes, Buddhism does reject Substance (which they identify with souls), in the teaching of Anatman. I take it then that you’re not Mahayana? Because Mahayana Buddhists say that, if you’re going to posit that Accidents are real, you must therefore say that they have substance. It turns into an infinite regress, unless you’re going to deny both Substance and Accident, and say that the only reality is Being (since its nonexistence would be nonsenical): from this they derive their interpretation of Advaita, Non-Duality.
If we don’t know what they are then how can we tell if they are suspended or not? How can we even know if they exist? You are making a very weak argument here.
We disagree here. I do not accept the existence of “fundamental nature” or any similar thing such as Substance or soul. If an entity changes then that entity changes.
Here we can agree. We are free within limits. We are responsible for our actions within those limits.
“You” is a convenient contraction for the assembly of all the different versions of the changing things that constitute rossum. It is easier to say “car” than to list all the different parts present in an automobile. I am merely using a verbal convenience that has no deeper significance beyond verbal convenience.
Thomist Accident is not an exact analogue to the Buddhist world view. It is just an approximation.
It does make sense to compare different editions of me at different times and to see which edition is better.
Common referents are listed in the dictionary. Language is defined in terms of language, it is a convenience and not a reflection of any deeper reality. The symbol ‘2’ may be called ‘two’, ‘deux’, ‘zwei’, ‘dva’, ‘ni’ or many other things in many different languages.
I do not recognise “own being”. Here is the opening of the Heart sutra:Avalokita, The Holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course of the Wisdom which has gone beyond. He looked down from on high, He beheld but five heaps, and he saw that in their own-being they were empty.
No entity can cause itself.Neither from itself nor from another,
I am Mahayana, as you can see from my two quotes above. Depending on who I am talking to I first show the unreality of Substance using something like Theravada Dharma-theory. Once that is established I then show the ultimate unreality of Accident using Prasangika-Madhyamika methods. You are correct in your analysis of the failings of Dharma-theory. It tends to correctly analyse reality into Dharmas but then to see those Dharmas as ultimately real.
Rossum:
That might have some very small weight if we forgot about consciousness. If we forgot about the subjective certainty that it is me who wants to exist. If we forgot about the subjective certainty that it is me who intends. If we forgot about the subjective certainty that it is me whose intentions either change, or remain the same, whenever I wake up in the morning.
Poor analogy. A “car” is a mere “functional aggregate”. Humans are more than that, though we are, in part, that. Neither the car, nor any of its parts, knows it’s a car, or, possesses intentions. It has no consciousness. It is as opposite to a human being as it can possibly be. The gulf between a human and a car, for that reason, approaches infinity. OTOH, I am my closest personal possession.
A pure naked assertion. Nothing more and nothing less. And, it’s source is a misunderstanding: that the changes that our physical structure undergoes does not require a stable subject. On the contrary, it does; otherwise chaos and disorder.
Rossum:
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Well, I don’t know about your being, but, I know that I own my being. And, if I have to prove it to Avalokita by screaming my name and that " I AM," I will.
Then, I guess we have been, and are being duped, in an ongoing fashion, when we believe that things “arise,” i.e., come to be. Nothing arises; nothing comes-to-be. This appears to be an illusion of an illusion. What exactly is a cause, to you?
I was just about to ask you for an example. And, Voilà!, here it is:
No it’s not. It is a manner of expressing what arising, i.e., coming to be, is without the use it, or a corollary of it, in its definition. That would not be a definition, per se. Besides, your above assertion is showing all of its skin again!
Sorry, my family can’t count on something like that. (They would toss me out!
) This is nothing more than a nonsensical exaggeration of the fact of our impermanence. However, we are permanent to an extent. We are here, on average, for about 75 years - a longish time, to be sure. And, if you take our souls into account, we exist eternally-from-a-beginning. Which you do not deny, otherwise you would not be able to reappear from time to time, along the Buddhist man-god continuum.You get sunburned but your liver does not get sunburned. Therefore your liver is not you. When you were a newly fertilized zygote in your mother’s womb you did not have any skin so that zygote cannot have been you either. The outer layer of your skin is dead; I must say you type remarkably well for someone who is dead. Your skin is not you, it is a part.
In Buddhist analysis consciousness is just one of the parts that make up a human being. There is nothing so special about consciousness, it changes from second to second and we can lose it entirely and become unconscious. Are you saying that when we are deeply asleep we are no longer in existence because we have lost consciousness?
You are correct to call it a “subjective” certainty. Buddhism calls it an error. Wishing to exist is an error that leads to suffering:[The Buddha said:] “And this, monks is the noble truth of the origination of suffering: the craving that makes for further becoming — accompanied by passion and delight, relishing now here and now there — i.e., craving for sensual pleasure, craving for existence, craving for non-existence.” [Emphasis added]
We disagree
. Humans are an aggregate, nothing more.An unconscious human has neither consciousness nor intentions. Is an unconscious human still a human? If yes then neither consciousness not intention is necessary in order to be human.
Strange. Possessions are something external to you. How can you be something that is external to you? Or perhaps you cannot get rid of your possessions? Jesus was very right and very profound when he advised his followers to divest themselves of all their possessions. “Not my will but thine…” Will and intention are just two of the things we need to divest ourselves of.
Do the sounds “unicorn”, “Zeus” or “Durga” refer to something ontologically real?
“I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”That’s not shallow, Hal . . .oops!, I mean rossum.
A rich man owns many things, but he has this difficulty with camels, needles and heaven. The less you own the easier it is to get through the eye of that needle.
This is the opening verse of Nagarjuna’s argument against causation based on the equivalent of Thomist substance. It is the start of his discussion of the logical impossibility of any causation based on any substance/essence that underlies things.
I for one am not. Five years ago I was not the person I am now. In five years time I will be different again. The 75 year duration is an illusion when examined closely. One of the three marks is that everything changes, everything is impermanent:“Impermanent are all compound things.”
Which I do deny:“All the elements of reality are soulless.”
I am denying that there is a “spiritual causation” that is different from ordinary causation. You have produced no evidence that such a different form of causation even exists, and you have told us that you don’t know what it is or how it works:
It is not what it appears to be. It is deceptive, an illusion if you like. Things are not what they seem to be. A man with red-green colour blindness sees a dog. Does he see the real dog or is his perception mistaken? Our perception of ‘self’ as a permanent reified entity is mistaken. The mistake is in our heads, not in reality.
We do not exist in the way we think we exist. Our thoughts on this question are incorrect, unless we are enlightened. We think that a mirage is water, but it is no water. It is not nothing either, but it is not what it seems to be. Appearances are deceptive.
You are an assembly of a body (which is itself made of sub-assemblies) and a soul. How can you be free if you are also an assembly?
Our actions are free within limits. This is an observation, not an explanation. Free will is not seen as a big problem in Buddhism because we do not have an omniscient God who already knows what we will do in the future.
Each edition does its own comparing with its own past.
The Abrahamic religions tend to see a great divide between the material and the spiritual. Buddhism sees a far smaller divide and has no problem with the same laws causal operating in both realms. Cause must precede effect for both material and spiritual realms and so on. There is only one causation which works the same in both realms. You appear to be trying to set up a second causation about which you can tell us nothing except that we know nothing about it. Hardly a very useful concept.
We can never know reality directly. All we know is through our senses and we know that our senses are deficient, incomplete and imperfect. We see less accurately than a hawk. We smell less sensitively than a Bloodhound. The electrical impulses that arrive at our brains from our sense organs are only a very imperfect reflection of the external reality. The models we build inside our heads, using those electrical impulses as raw material, are even further removed from reality. Reification is yet another level of abstraction built on top of those models. That is why I see reification as dangerous; it is too far removed from reality.
The illusion is that we think what we sense is real. What we sense is electrical impulses arriving along our sensory nerves into our brains. Does my computer comprise only a set of electrical impulses in my sensory nerves? No it does not, but I can never know it as anything other than a collection of sensory impulses.
I am not enlightened.
There is no soul in anyone or anything. You will not convince a Buddhist if you require a soul as part of your argument.
I am sure that all those philosophers who have spent thousands of years discussing the relationship between omniscience, determinism and free will will be glad to know that all their problems have been solved.
Of course. It may be better, it may be the same or it may be worse.
We compare outcomes. Does the outcome tend towards peace, happiness or nirvana? Does it increase geed, hatred or delusion? “By their fruits shall you know them.”
Do you really want a reply to this?
Sheer chance that it turned out to be me.
Do you really need a sane reply to this, too?
My mere physical, i.e., biological side is.
That would be an exciting TV show. Sort of gruesome though. But, there are probably those who would enjoy it.
Do you really want a sane reply to this, too?
Next time, I will. It was painful.
Just like an arm?
How about consciousness of consciousness? How about consciousness of consciousness of consciousness? How about fourth order consciousness?
Yes. We are immersed in life.
No. Did you read that I said that somewhere?
We poor Westerners like my version better, for the most part.
For some. But, some of them usually terminate themselves. The rest, usually come to their senses before drinking the Hemlock.
I guess you’d have to be there.
No more than slugs. No more than worms. No more than maggots. No more than tapeworms. Right?We disagree
Temporarily. A mere temporality. Unless he’s en-route to next life!
Then, perhaps, he can come back as a maggot.Consciousness is shared by the higher animals, at least. Intention, not so much. But, 2nd-, 3rd-, 4th-, and 5th-order consciousness is not.
Such as my liver? Such as my intelligence? Such as my memory? Such as my consciousness? Such as my intentions? Such as my continued affinity for my grown children?
Why do you ask this non-sense question?
Let’s not go there.
Jesus was not asking his disciples to become catatonic.
Origin: Middle English: via Old French from Latin unicornis, from uni- ‘single’ + cornu ‘horn’, translating Greek monokerōs. “Zeus”, pronunciation: /zollos/zus. Origin: Greek: related to the first syllable in Latin jupiter and Sanskrit dyauḥ ‘sky’. And, Durga: pronunciation: /ˈdollrgä, ˈdʊrɡɑ/ from Hinduism. But, since I don’t speak those languages, I can’t tell you whether or not the words sound like the things they represent.
You really don’t want to go there either.
noun
Yes.
Your last sentence is an illusion.
I can certainly agree with Dhammapada
The Christian knows that only too well. The sublime Christian works for the Vision.
Not according to Scientology. Thetans have been permanent for billions, if not trillions, of years. It is Thetans that re-insert themselves into new matter.
Then, what are all the other “cars” called?
Your intentions change over your lifetime. You may have the intention “I want to get a drink of water”. Once you have gone to the kitchen and got your drink then you no longer have that intention. Since it is no longer there, and you are still there, then that intention was not you. The elements that compose the aggregate are all changing, coming and going. None of them are permanent. None of them are you.
There is a standard list of 32 parts of the body, sometimes used in meditation practice: hair of the head, hair of the body, nails, teeth, skin, … tears, sweat, saliva, snot, synovial fluid, urine.
Consciousness is consciousness, whatever its object.
My question was rhetorical. If we are still ourselves when we are unconscious then it is not necessary to have consciousness in order to be ourselves.
Wishing for non-existence is also an error.
All are aggregates, though the elements of the aggregate are different. Remember that in Buddhism we have all been born/hatched as many sorts of animals and may be in future as well.
But during that temporary time that aggregate is still human, despite being without either consciousness or intentions. Hence showing that neither are essential to being human.
Your liver is internal to your physical body. We both agree that there is more to a human being than just a physical body.
No. Someone who follows the Father’s will would not be catatonic, but neither would they be following their own will.
It is well worth reading if you can find a good translation. There is much that applies to all and not just to Buddhists.
JDaniel, Benedict XVI, Francis of Assisi, Shakya Gautama Siddhartha, Jesus of Nazareth etc.