FmAm

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Time has passed, and I've lost my faith in experience, too. Thanks to Nagarjuna and Gorgias.

 

There's a good paper on Madhyamikas and nihilism: "Sunyavada: A Reinterpretation" by Harsh Narain.

"The true world - we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one."

There's much common to Hume and Buddha:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_identity#The_no-self_theory

http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-PHIL/james1.htm

Read through the link you gave on David Hume. I did not study philosophy or religion in university, so the name was new to me. His ideas are the same that would be said by any liberated being. Pretty much whoever I have come across present the same ideas that are ancient. They have been well expounded by Buddha 2600 years ago, in much more detail.

 

So, we have moved on, and away from the discussion on EGO.  You are digging deep; and you have said that it is not from the base of mere words/intellect/understanding.  When you say "But the story isn't true....",  i feel it needs clarification.   What you refer to as "story" stems from the "No-Thing ness"  that we were discussing before.  Since you talked so much about "No-thing ness", i hope you see vividly the prior statement.  What you refer to as "real" and "unreal (the story)",  they are  both born from that "No-thing ness".   So, when mind steps out of that Nothingness,  all of duality is born.   Thus,  the story can be viewed as both true and untrue, once you exit from that state of mind.  

 

You say  ".....The problem with mind is that there isn't even a sensation which could be labeled as "mind". There's just the story."   Isn't  Mind is a collective word, that encompasses.  The story is born in the mind, born from the mind, when you step into duality of reality,  which in itself stems from the No-Thing-ness state of mind.

 

I'm claiming that there's no "upwelling". Nothing stems. There's no source. I'm not talking about some metaphysical or religious nothingness here. What I mean is that there's no consciousness or mind behind or beyond experience. If someone says experience happens in/on/at/to/etc mind/consciousness/Mind/Consciousness, I disagree. There's no doer, just doing. No experiencer, just experiencing. There's no hierarchy in experiencing. There's no base experience (such like consciousness). No foundation. No eternal Absolute.

 

Experiencing (whatever it is at the "time") is all there is. And it can't be defined. If someone says he's experiencing ego or Consciousness, it's the experiencing that "exists", not the ego or Consciousness. The possible ego-experiencing is only experiencing, like hunger-experiencing (although I don't believe there's an experience of an ego). If there's table-experiencing, it's the experiencing that exists (for sure), not the table.

 

I'm not a big fan of Nietzsche, but there are some things he said quite well:

For, in just the same way as people separate lightning from its flash and take the latter as an action, as the effect of a subject which is called lightning, so popular morality separates strength from the manifestations of strength, as if behind the strong person there were an indifferent substrate, which is free to express strength or not. But there is no such substrate; there is no "being" behind the doing, acting, becoming. "The doer" is merely made up and added into the action – the act is everything. People basically duplicate the action: when they see a lightning flash, that is an action of an action: they set up the same event first as the cause and then yet again as its effect.

 

What alone can our teaching be? – That no one gives a man his qualities, neither God, nor society, nor his parents and ancestors, nor he himself (the latter absurd idea here put aside has been taught as "intelligible freedom" by Kant, perhaps also by Plato). No one is responsible for existing at all, for being formed so and so, for being placed under those circumstances and in this environment. His own destiny cannot be disentangled from the destiny of all else in past and future. He is not the result of a special purpose, a will, or an aim, the attempt is not here made to reach an "ideal of man," an "ideal of happiness," or an "ideal of morality;" – it is absurd to try to shunt off man's nature towards some goal. We have invented the notion of a "goal:" in reality a goal is lacking . . . We are necessary, we are part of destiny, we belong to the whole, we exist in the whole, – there is nothing which could judge, measure, compare, or condemn our being, for that would be to judge, measure, compare, and condemn the whole . . . But there is nothing outside the whole! – This only is the grand emancipation: that no one be made responsible any longer

 

Of these "inward facts" that seem to demonstrate causality, the primary and most persuasive one is that of the will as cause. The idea of consciousness ("spirit") or, later, that of the ego (the "subject") as a cause are only afterbirths: first the causality of the will was firmly accepted as proved, as a fact, and these other concepts followed from it.

And BTW:  "I" have defined my reality and "I" experience it every day.

 

I know. I can feel it all the way over here.

You done good. That's sometimes called defining reality.

Reality can't be defined. Reality can't be experienced. Experience is reality.

 

A shoe isn't an experience.

What does one put into a shoe?

A foot, of course.

 

I don't know if it is useful/good/conducive to progress, to say "Mind is like ego: it doesn't exist and can't be experienced". If we are going to make the division of body & mind, then would it be useful for me to say to a commoner that "Body doesn't exist and can't be experienced" ? (Even though there is a state of mind, where the body & its sensations cease). Different levels, different layers, different states, different perspectives.

Yes, I'm saying that body is just like mind. It doesn't exist. When I experience my foot, for example, that's not what's really happening. "Me" and "foot" are thoughts, the inner story. The experience of the story and the thought is real. But the story isn't true. What we experience is a collection of sensations and forms (and even "form" is too much said - it is just a sensation without the story of a form). No "my foot".

 

This is what can be absolutely certain. It is possible that "my body" is living in a "world". But I can never be sure about it.

 

There are sensations I link together. One link contains the thought "foot" and some other sensations (which really aren't separate). But there's no proof for "a foot". The problem with mind is that there isn't even a sensation which could be labeled as "mind". There's just the story.

 

The Bundle Theory of the Self http://m.sparknotes.com/philosophy/hume/themes.html

 

 

Ok. It is nice to see that you are truthful.  I completely understand what you have said in your initial post and have reiterated in various ways.  Some thoughts that came while reading your posts here....

 

 

• As all the smart people here have understood,  I/SELF/ME  does not exist. It is an illusion of the mind.  But because of EGO (part of the mind),   mind  clings  to the illusion of  I/SELF/ME.  Ego is so subtle, so powerful to such an extent that it is the very last thing that will be destroyed among the taints.   When you destroy mind completely (using mind itself),  that is the moment when EGO gets destroyed alongside.  The subtlety of Ego is such that,  you can  see traces of it  only  when you  completely remove yourself  from the world.  This is similar to the fact that we see subtlety of breathing or body energy only when mind withdraws from other distractions.
• We can not deny other people's  experience  by saying  things like  "No one can experience ego or self"  OR  "Body and mind do not exist".  The illusion of these things  exist, and is being experienced by all of us. The illusion itself  is the experience.  When body and mind retreat / quiet-down / reach-subtlety,  arising of these parts of mind is experienced  even more distinctly.
• When the mind expands to encompass the higher dimensions, it realizes NO-THINGness.  This process starts with mere words/reading/understanding, and from this base of words it arrives at the  direct experience itself.  But  mere intellectual understanding of this,  penetration of it -  that itself  is powerful enough to make us start dancing with ego.
• So, let us always have high reverence for the Supremely Enlightened teachers that human history has produced. After all, they spent their entire life on this topic;  and centuries have not shaken up their foundation.

 

It's the illusion of ego I'm talking about. I'm not denying other people's experience (although I can know nothing about it). I'm just saying that other people and myself are just stories and there's not even an illusion of an ego or I. Has someone experienced an ego? I have never heard anyone saying that. Ego/I isn't something that can be experienced. Mind is like ego: it doesn't exist and can't be experienced. It's only an unnecessary noun added to the experience. (And I have no purpose behind this. I'm not denying (and I haven't denied) religions or beliefs, or stories. I don't care if someone believes that illusion of ego/mind exists. These are just thoughts.)

 

Philosophy to me is always about the Absolute. When it comes to the Relative (the stories), I turn to psychology instead of philosophy.

 

PS Free will negates nihilism.

 

There's no possibility for free will. How could it be possible? I have never heard any plausible explanation. The belief in the story exists. Together with the belief comes the need to punish and judge, and the need to get acknowledgement.

 

The kind of nihilism I'm talking about here clears all the obstacles to love and compassion.

More rubbish.

You are you built upon all your life experiences. You derive all your values and beliefs from those experiences. Your entire Nihlist philosophy is built from those experiences.

 

Of course. Just like a mountain is formed by plates, the plates are formed by other factors etc. But what you call "me" is just a bunch of reactions (again, thoughts, feelings and other impressions) to environmental stimulation. And because of the infinite series of causes and effects, those reactions can't be separated from the environment.

Please do not lie to yourself,  in an effort  to  keep up  the nonexistent "I/ego"....   Waking up this morning, i realized that this can't  be an everyday / every moment  experience for you.  Because your words do not carry the sense of  such a deep experience.   There are hidden clues  throughout this thread,  to this effect.  This is not an attempt  to bash you,  but an attempt  to clarify things.  I  give you  full credit  for  your studies,  your  intellectual prowess / knowledge  and I respect it  because  mere words / mere understanding of a concept,  is  commendable  in itself.   We need the base of words,  in order to move towards an experience and the wisdom that stems from it.

 

Feel free to bash me. I'm not saying that I'm enlightened and without "I/ego" in a sense it is described in some religious texts. Not at all. I am an ordinary wanker with a very sensitive "ego".

 

What I'm trying to say is that the ego doesn't exist even in a normal, everyday experience of a sensitive retard like me. Experience of ego isn't there even when it is insisted that it is there. There is just thought (an inner story) and other impressions. No one can experience ego or self. No one can experience oneself. Because there isn't one.

 

This thread isn't about me.

karma doesn't give two cents about all of our beliefs and high sounding and well reasoned and opinions, it works flawlessly and relentlessly to kick our ass if that is what we have earned and returns kindness if that is what we've shared...

 

My impression of karma is that of a pessimist. The world might return evil for good and good for evil. Or it might return nothing at all. Doing good and being compassionate is the last and only effort of the powerless. It's some kind of refusal and objection. And even the effort doesn't stem from "me". There's "good" and "evil" without real good and evil. There's doing and actions without doers or actors.

I am curious about these words. Are these your logical conclusion, intellectual deduction, result of contemplation (or reading) OR is this something that you experience every day as an experience, and the words stem from such a base ?

Both. Morality and free will can't be experienced. Affection and compassion can instead. So it's just realising the experience.

 

This is a logical conclusion, too. And I've been searching literature that describes these conclusions.

This is more or less what Descartres said. From the point of view of his "telling the story", there is only telling the story; including the story of "I am." 

It is a misreading of the text to say that the expression is an axiom regarding the absolute. He embarked on a circular argument to make the absolute necessary with the clear understanding that stopping with just that statement left him with just that statement.

Much as you are using the concept of the absolute to make it not necessary.

 

Actually Hume criticised Descartes for his notion about the self. So my view is humean (or nietzschean) on this particular issue.

 

I don't care about Nietzsche's solutions. Gautama's "letting go" is more honest standpoint.

Assume bored.

 

Boring as a feeling is something that doesn't have to be assumed. It's real. (Although it's probably a mixture of angry and sad.)

That you agree there cannot be proof of proof is sufficient.

 

An axiom isn't proof. It's an assumption.

As long as you are arguing then you are proving the axiom.

 

Axioms are something that can't be proven.

You are already proving the axioms by trying to argue there are no axioms.

 

I have a room in my house for all the things I've argued against. There's a few gods, a spaghetti monster, Starship Enterprise, just to name a few. Today I was thinking about arguing against 100 pounds of chocolate.

Sit still with me in the shade of these green trees, which have no weightier thought than the withering of their leaves when autumn arrives, or the stretching of their many stiff fingers into the cold sky of the passing winter. Sit still with me and meditate on how useless effort is, how alien the will, and on how our very meditation is no more useful than effort, and no more our own than the will. Meditate too on how a life that wants nothing can have no weight in the flux of things, but a life the wants everything can likewise have no weight in the flux of things, since it cannot obtain everything, and to obtain less than everything is not worthy of souls that seek the truth. (Fernando Pessoa)

I see you agree with me which is excellent.

 

I don't give myself labels. Objectivism has a lot of merit. I can't say I agree with all of it, just as I couldn't say I agree with everything Aristotle believed, or contradict everything that Plato thought, or even Hegel and Kant. It's best to start with ones own reasoning and develop ones own philosophy by questioning everything.

 

You seem to wish many different things to me: death, happiness and now agreeing (you are being quite authoritarian).

 

What would mathematics be without assumed truths, axioms? Math reflects and summarises the patterns of thought, the ways thought classifies the experience. Without Peano axioms, there can be no counting. Number one (1) is "the ultimate axiom" (it was Peano's original number, instead of 0). Assuming number 1 basically means that there's something, a thing, something countable - and someone (a thing, a soul, a self) is counting here. These axioms are questionable even in the light of the modern physics.

 

I'm just staying in the position of no axioms at all. I have no need to deny anything.

Stolen concept fallacy. You have just proven the existence of body and mind.

 

Actually... not. And it wasn't even stolen concept fallacy. (Are you Randian Objectivist?)

It has to be my job to state that there's no proof for body or mind. Only "thing" that can be certain is some kind of unexplainable experience. And this experience can't be communicated to "others". I call this nihilistic solipsism, solipsism without self (mind).

 

This is science at its best. No beliefs or myths, just the bare truth.

Have you read any Albert Camus?

 

I have. His books were good, but a bit wordy for my taste.

Yet you ponder it as it isn't don't you ? That all things aren't real. The universe is as we sense it. It is real. We are real.

 

No, that's not what I've been saying.

 

There's sensing, feeling, thinking.

 

Real, universe, thing, me, you - merely abstract speculations that can't be proven.