Is there a real world out there?...

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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kirk5a
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by kirk5a »

retrofuturist wrote: I would never have object-ified "liver" as an independent physical object if no one had ever told me about livers, their function, and so on.... I would have just regarded this lump as "body".

What about you? Would you have object-ified "liver" as an independent physical object if no one had ever told you about livers, their function, and so on.? Without that objectification would we be having this discussion?

All in all, it's less about agnosticism than it is about the fabrication of perceptions of existence/non-existence. When one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.
Ok, that's cool. Talking about objectification and fabrication of perceptions is a bit different than saying there is complete uncertainty about whether physical objects have any existence other than what one sees, hears, and so on. Which is how I usually hear the topic framed. Because I don't think people actually have any uncertainty about whether their eyeballs exist when they aren't looking in the mirror. Or whether they have a brain. Or any doubt about whether one's friends have any existence other than your own seeing, hearing, etc. of them.

As far as my own liver goes, I take it on faith with a 100% confidence level that I do in fact have one. Whether I objectify it or not may be relevant to my state of mind, but is irrelevant to the proper functioning of this physical body.

Oh and there is a way to prove that my liver exists - an X-ray or ultrasound is more than sufficient. Philosophical skeptics have gotten ahold of the concept of "proof" and raised it to a standard which is far beyond what "prove" means in the first place, making the idea of proof meaningless.
"When one thing is practiced & pursued, ignorance is abandoned, clear knowing arises, the conceit 'I am' is abandoned, latent tendencies are uprooted, fetters are abandoned. Which one thing? Mindfulness immersed in the body." -AN 1.230
SamKR
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by SamKR »

Real vs. unreal. Both are extremes. There is no sharp demarcation between real and unreal.
I like the Buddha's words in Kaccayanagotta sutta and Kalakarama sutta.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
"Whatever is seen or heard or sensed
and fastened onto as true by others,
One who is Such — among the self-fettered —
wouldn't further claim to be true or even false.

"Having seen well in advance that arrow
where generations are fastened & hung
— 'I know, I see, that's just how it is!' —
there's nothing of the Tathagata fastened."
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mikenz66
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by mikenz66 »

retrofuturist wrote: All in all, it's less about agnosticism than it is about the fabrication of perceptions of existence/non-existence. When one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one.
I agree, and I think that sutta (SN 12.15) is actually irrelevant to Spiny's question. It appears to be referring to the extremes of eternalism and annhilationism, not about whether "things exist".
See: http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 69#p170101

PS, the reason I bolded "deny" above, is that I have seen people criticise what they see as "ontological statements but which I interpret as merely "the language and working model" above http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.ph ... 26#p251240. For example yathābhūtadassana is often translated as "seeing things as they really are" as in:
"Disenchantment, monks, also has a supporting condition, I say, it does not lack a supporting condition. And what is the supporting condition for disenchantment? 'The knowledge and vision of things as they really are' should be the reply.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .bodh.html
But it really isn't talking about some philosophical position. See: http://www.dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=9782

:anjali:
Mike
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mikenz66
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by mikenz66 »

By the way, here's an old, related, topic:
Is Theravada "Realist"?

:anjali:
Mike
Sylvester
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by Sylvester »

One of Prof Gombrich's students, Sue Hamilton, suggests that if the suttas' ontology were to meaningfully described and classified (even if the Buddha was totally uninterested in the enterprise), it would probably best be termed "transcendental idealism". There are 2 parts to the name.

Hamilton's analysis of the suttas leads her to believe that the phenomenological focus of the Buddha was on the Aggregates as either "experience" or "experiential facilitators". Because the Aggregates arise only with contact/phassa, that accounts for the "idealism" in one part of the suttas' ontology.

The "transcendental" bit is to account for the other limb of experience, ie the external bases (bāhira āyatana) that make up one-third of contact. These are the sense objects. As these things are never known directly, but only through the mediation of contact, she says they are "transcendental". Not in the sense of supramundane or anything mystical as such, but simply in the sense that nobody (not even the Buddha) could transcend the subject-object duality inherent in contact.
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retrofuturist
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,
Sylvester, channeling Sue Hamilton wrote:The "transcendental" bit is to account for the other limb of experience, ie the external bases (bāhira āyatana) that make up one-third of contact. These are the sense objects. As these things are never known directly, but only through the mediation of contact, she says they are "transcendental". Not in the sense of supramundane or anything mystical as such, but simply in the sense that nobody (not even the Buddha) could transcend the subject-object duality inherent in contact.
Well that would accord with the Buddha's grouping of the All...

"What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavours, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas"

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
Sylvester
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by Sylvester »

Hi Retro

It's a valid perspective. On the other hand, I think that when the Buddha gave that teaching, He had in mind espousing it as a very specific antidote to another "All" (sarvam) out there. It was the Upanisadic "sarvam" that was thought to be "Existence" itself. This Upanisadic "All" is immanent and transcendent blah blah blah. The Buddhist "All", as I'm sure you'll notice, is totally amenable to establishing contact.

In fact, in the very next sutta which espouses the abandonment of the "All", you can see the central pivot to the "All" is contact.
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retrofuturist
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings Sylvester,

I think the "hands" are mutually reconcilable... whilst the Buddha often taught against the background of prevaling ideas (either leveraging them, redefining them, or using them for comparative purposes), he always taught Dhamma.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
chownah
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by chownah »

Sylvester wrote:but simply in the sense that nobody (not even the Buddha) could transcend the subject-object duality inherent in contact.
Is Sue Hamilton mistaken then when she suggests what you have quoted above in that the Buddha directs us to transcend The All?
chownah
Last edited by chownah on Fri Jun 28, 2013 3:30 am, edited 2 times in total.
pegembara
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by pegembara »

How does one know about the world if not through our senses? Xrays, infrared etc. need to be made visible for our eyes to see with instruments. What is real for one person is different for another. Is the human world more real than a dog's or fish? What is real?
"There are these four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them. Which four?

"The Buddha-range of the Buddhas[1] is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it.

"The jhana-range of a person in jhana...[2]

"The [precise working out of the] results of kamma...

"Conjecture about [the origin, etc., of] the world is an unconjecturable that is not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about it.

"These are the four unconjecturables that are not to be conjectured about, that would bring madness & vexation to anyone who conjectured about them."

Acintita Sutta: Unconjecturable
"I tell you, friend, that it is not possible by traveling to know or see or reach a far end of the cosmos where one does not take birth, age, die, pass away, or reappear. But at the same time, I tell you that there is no making an end of suffering & stress without reaching the end of the cosmos. Yet it is just within this fathom-long body, with its perception & intellect, that I declare that there is the cosmos, the origination of the cosmos, the cessation of the cosmos, and the path of practice leading to the cessation of the cosmos."
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka ... .than.html
And what is right speech? Abstaining from lying, from divisive speech, from abusive speech, & from idle chatter: This is called right speech.
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by Sylvester »

chownah wrote:
Sylvester wrote:but simply in the sense that nobody (not even the Buddha) could transcend the subject-object duality inherent in contact.
Is Sue Hamilton mistaken then when she suggests what you have quoted above in that the Buddha directs us to transcend The All?
chownah

I think SN 35.24 uses the term "pahātabbaṃ" (to be abandoned), instead of transcend (which implies something else to take its place). Death, I suppose, is the only way an Arahant transcends the subject-object duality permanently, since that will be the final and irreversible abandonment of contact.
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retrofuturist
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,
Sylvester wrote:subject-object duality...
I'm not convinced that it's apt to regard "eye & forms" as a subject-object duality. I would have thought "subject" implies a being ~ an entity, a puggala, an atman, a satta, or at least the perception thereof... thus, in this sense the subject would be asmi-mana (i.e. the "I am" conceit).

Taking my definition (which you're welcome to disagree with), the arahant does transcend the subject-object duality through the eradication of asmi-mana.

Metta,
Retro. :)
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by Spiny Norman »

retrofuturist wrote:
Sylvester wrote:subject-object duality...
I'm not convinced that it's apt to regard "eye & forms" as a subject-object duality.
I think it's describing a distinction between internal and external, and as I observed previously the distinction between internal and external is made in the suttas, eg in MN10 and in the suttas about the elements.

I certainly don't think the Buddha was denying an external world, rather I think his focus was pragmatically on our immediate experience because it's directly observable. I think in a way it's analogous to Thanissaro's idea of a not-self strategy.
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by Spiny Norman »

retrofuturist wrote:"What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavours, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas"
But this isn't intended as an ontological statement. It's really just saying that our knowledge of the world depends on our senses.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
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mikenz66
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Re: Is there a real world out there?...

Post by mikenz66 »

Spiny Norman wrote: I certainly don't think the Buddha was denying an external world, rather I think his focus was pragmatically on our immediate experience because it's directly observable. I think in a way it's analogous to Thanissaro's idea of a not-self strategy.
Yes, I was thinking about how were parallels between taking a stand on views such as:
Whether or not there is a real world out there;
Whether there is or is not a self.

:anjali:
Mike
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