Philosophy Discussion Forums | A Humans-Only Philosophy Club

[Atla]

In other words its true but I can't tel you why.

Here's someone who was able to write a book on nondualism "in a dualistic language like English": viewtopic.php?p=332058#p332058

It's not true that Western philosophy is "totally dualistic", since it contains monisms as well. However, there are different types of monism (and dualism):

"There are many monisms. What they share is that they attribute oneness. Where they differ is in what they target and how they count.…"

Monism: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/monism/

Attributing oneness is dualistic thinking.

Anyway I think at this point we really are finished.

[Consul]

Doing some googling, I just came upon the book "Nonduality: In Buddhism and Beyond" by David Loy, which seems to be a good introduction and might interest you too (if you haven't read it already).

I just saw that the whole book can be freely downloaded from Loy's website: http://www.davidloy.org/downloads/Loy_Nonduality.pdf

[Felix]

The Buddha said the conditional self is illusory, he did not say the knower of that self is illusory, that would be an absurd assertion.

Consul: "But even to say that rocks experience "chaotic flashes of light and dark or whatever" is to say that they are capable of conscious vision, that they see things through undergoing or "enjoying" visual appearances/impressions of them."

I once read a series of discussions by prominent exobiologists in which they debated whether humans would be able to recognize intelligent extraterrestrial life that did not resemble us at all, for example, crystalline entities, mobile aquatic organisms, or compact gaseous clouds. Their opinion on the subject was just about evenly divided, but they all agreed that communication was the key. If the ET's communicated nonverbally, via telepathy, chemical signals, or whatever, we probably would not recognize them as sentient.

[Sculptor1]

This sort of metaphysics happily violates the law of non-contradiction, doesn't it?
But when logic leaves the room irrationality and obscurity enter it.

No, it doesn't. I guess you could say from a Western perspective that Eastern nondualism is basically "monistic" or looks "monistic", however it also has no actual separations, no divisions.

If you want something that is absurd, you call everything the same thing. So black is white, white is black. Beware next time you cross the road.

[Consul]

If you want something that is absurd, you call everything the same thing.

Nondualists can hardly call nondualism and non-nondualism one and the same thing.

[Consul]

I once read a series of discussions by prominent exobiologists in which they debated whether humans would be able to recognize intelligent extraterrestrial life that did not resemble us at all, for example, crystalline entities, mobile aquatic organisms, or compact gaseous clouds. Their opinion on the subject was just about evenly divided, but they all agreed that communication was the key. If the ET's communicated nonverbally, via telepathy, chemical signals, or whatever, we probably would not recognize them as sentient.

I think there's a non-accidental connection between life and consciousness, and crystals and gas clouds aren't living organisms.

By the way, if you want to see alien creatures, you'll find plenty of exotic organisms on Earth that are highly dissimilar from us.

[Consul]

Eastern non-dualism is: not-many, not-two, not-one, not-zero.

This sort of metaphysics happily violates the law of non-contradiction, doesn't it?
But when logic leaves the room irrationality and obscurity enter it.

"In the meditational process of discovery then, Zen moves from an ordinary, commonsensical standpoint to an extraordinary standpoint and with this transformation returns to the everyday “life-world,” wherein no Aristotelian either-or logic is accepted as the standard for knowing and understanding reality. Due to this reason, paradoxes, contradictions, and even what appears to be utter nonsense abound in Zen literature. The kōan method mentioned above exemplifies this point. To cite just one such example: “the river does not flow but the bridge does.” If one attempts to understand it by relying on Aristotelian either-or logic as one’s standard for understanding, one will be under the impression that this expression is nonsensical or meaningless."

Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-zen/

However, there are cases where apparent contradictions can be interpreted in such a way that they turn out to be merely apparent. For instance, if "a is F & a is not F" is contextually relativized and read as "a is F relative to x & a is not F relative to y", then it can be non-contradictory. So by interpreting contradictions of the form p & ~p (Fa & ~Fa) relativistically as "p is relatively true & ~p is relatively true" rather than as "p is absolutely true & ~p is absolutely true" we can avoid real contradictions.
Note that this is not to say that it's possible to give a consistent interpretation of all apparent contradictions in Buddhist philosophy!

"If so, neither LEM nor LNC is directly at stake in the tetralemma: you can have your Aristotle and Buddha too.
We tend to recalibrate apparent violations of LNC as conforming to a version of the law that incorporates the Aristotelian qualifications: a sincere defense of “p and not-p” plausibly involves a change in the context of evaluation or a shift in viewpoint, or alternatively a suppression of modal or epistemic operators. This practice can be seen as an instance of a general methodological principle associated with Davidson and Quine that has come to be called the principle of charity (or, alternately, the principle of rational accommodation): when it is unclear how to interpret another's argument, interpret it in a way that makes the most sense. At the same time, this procedure evokes the standard Gricean mode of explanation (Grice 1989; see the entry on implicature): granted the operation of the Cooperative Principle and, more broadly, the shared premise of rationality, we reinterpret apparent violations of valid principles or maxims so as to conserve the assumption that one's interlocutor is a rational and cooperative agent. And as Aristotle would remind us, no principle is more worthy of conservation than the Law of Non-Contradiction."

Contradiction > LNC and the Buddhist Tetralemma

[Consul]

Nondualists can hardly call nondualism and non-nondualism one and the same thing.

Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy > Overcoming Dualism

[Felix]

Consul: "I think there's a non-accidental connection between life and consciousness, and crystals and gas clouds aren't living organisms."

But whose to say what the limits of biology are? Exobiologists speculate that advanced forms of nonauditory and nonvisual sense apprehension may be possible: tactile, olfactory, and gustatory sensory apparatus, that utilize vibrational, chemical or electromagnetic means of communication.

[Sculptor1]

If you want something that is absurd, you call everything the same thing.

Nondualists can hardly call nondualism and non-nondualism one and the same thing.

ROLF
What about non-non-non-dualism?

[Sculptor1]

Consul: "I think there's a non-accidental connection between life and consciousness, and crystals and gas clouds aren't living organisms."

But whose to say what the limits of biology are?

Biologists actually.
There really is no exobiology until there is exo-life.

[Consul]

Consul: "I think there's a non-accidental connection between life and consciousness, and crystals and gas clouds aren't living organisms."
But whose to say what the limits of biology are? Exobiologists speculate that advanced forms of nonauditory and nonvisual sense apprehension may be possible: tactile, olfactory, and gustatory sensory apparatus, that utilize vibrational, chemical or electromagnetic means of communication.

The limits of biology are the limits of life. All forms of life we know are carbon-based, and whether non-carbon-based forms are possible is an open question. However, if a physical system is to be a type of living organism at all, it must have a some biochemical constitution or other (which clouds and stones certainly haven't).

If there are extraterrestrial organisms, they may have developed sense organs and sensory capacities that no animal on Earth has. But even on Earth there are ones humans lack such as the lateral line organ.

As for communication as the exchange of signs or messages, it always requires some kind of stimulus-receiving sense organ and some information-encoding and -transmitting physical medium such as sound waves; so extraterrestrial organisms couldn't communicate telepathically, no matter how highly developed they are.

[Consul]

Nondualists can hardly call nondualism and non-nondualism one and the same thing.

ROLF
What about non-non-non-dualism?

That's the same as non-dualism.

Two theorems of propositional logic:

1. double negation: ~~p <–> p
2. triple negation: ~~~p <–> ~p

[Consul]

"In the meditational process of discovery then, Zen moves from an ordinary, commonsensical standpoint to an extraordinary standpoint and with this transformation returns to the everyday “life-world,” wherein no Aristotelian either-or logic is accepted as the standard for knowing and understanding reality. Due to this reason, paradoxes, contradictions, and even what appears to be utter nonsense abound in Zen literature.…"

Japanese Zen Buddhist Philosophy: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/japanese-zen/

No wonder, since an anti-Aristotelian logical nondualism eliminating the difference or distinction between is and isn't, present and absent, yes and no must result in absurdities and contradictions.

[Sculptor1]

ROLF
What about non-non-non-dualism?

That's the same as non-dualism.

Two theorems of propositional logic:

1. double negation: ~~p <–> p
2. triple negation: ~~~p <–> ~p

Since dualism is absurd, the you can add as many nons to the front of it you like - it is still nonce.