Is this a proper test for solipsism ?

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?

Do you agree with the test ?

Yes
3
19%
No
13
81%
 
Total votes: 16

User avatar
SDC
Posts: 9058
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2009 11:08 pm

Re: Is this a proper test for solipsism ?

Post by SDC »

Circle5 wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 3:25 pm...
Looks like you completely missed the point of my post. Or just ignored it.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
User avatar
aflatun
Posts: 814
Joined: Fri Sep 16, 2016 2:40 pm
Location: Bay Area, CA

Re: Is this a proper test for solipsism ?

Post by aflatun »

pulga wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 2:17 pm
chownah wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 4:15 am
I couldn't find a good definition of reflexion to illustrate what nanavira is talking about.
Husserl's concept of apperception is helpful in understanding what Ven. Ñanavira means by reflexion:
Apperception (Apperzeption, Vergegenwärtigung)â•… See also appresentation, presentification

For Husserl, an apperception (Apperzeption) always presupposes and is founded on a perception (see CM § 55). To apperceive means to grasp something over and above what is actually perceived. Apperceptions accompany and form part of perceptions. The term ‘apperception’ is used by Descartes, Kant and Leibniz. In Brentano, an apperception is founded
on a perception. In perception, there is a direct experience of the selfgivenness of the object. In apperception, there is a sense that the object is mediated through something else that is presented immediately. For instance, in all perception of a physical object, direct perception is of the facing side of the object, the hidden sides of the object are apperceived or
appresented in an empty manner. Perception involves a horizon of sense that is co-intended and appresented. In his Passive Synthesis lectures, Husserl defines apperception as ‘a consciousness of having something that is not present in the original’ (APS, 367; Hua XI 234). Apperception involves a certain awareness of properties, profiles, horizons that are not
sensuously given in the perceiving itself, e.g. if I am in a room, I am aware not only of the objects that are inside the room, but also of the building in which I am. This connection between presence and absence is crucial for phenomenology. There are not only apperceptions of the things and the world but also of the self and others. Our interests, customs, convictions, judgements, etc. are grasped ‘apperceptively’ (Crisis, § 59). Husserl employs the term ‘presentiation’ or ‘presentification’ (Vergegenwärtigung) to cover a huge range of experiences including memories, fantasies, anticipations,
awareness of the hidden side of a physical object, and so on: ‘There are sense’ (CM § 50, 111; Hua I 141). Husserl says that an apperception does not involve inference (CM § 51). For Husserl, seeing another living body as a subject or cogito is a typical example of an apperception. -- Husserl Dictionary
Thanks for that pulga. A while ago you recommended I review categorial intuition in the thought of Husserl, which also helped a lot.
"People often get too quick to say 'there's no self. There's no self...no self...no self.' There is self, there is focal point, its not yours. That's what not self is."

Ninoslav Ñāṇamoli
Senses and the Thought-1, 42:53

"Those who create constructs about the Buddha,
Who is beyond construction and without exhaustion,
Are thereby damaged by their constructs;
They fail to see the Thus-Gone.

That which is the nature of the Thus-Gone
Is also the nature of this world.
There is no nature of the Thus-Gone.
There is no nature of the world."

Nagarjuna
MMK XXII.15-16
User avatar
Circle5
Posts: 945
Joined: Wed May 31, 2017 2:14 am

Re: Is this a proper test for solipsism ?

Post by Circle5 »

aflatun wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 4:51 pm Thanks for that pulga. A while ago you recommended I review categorial intuition in the thought of Husserl, which also helped a lot.
I googled this Husserl "categorial intuition" and appearently it's a perfect example of what I spoke before. Let's take a look at it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmund_Hu ... and_object
From Logical Investigations (1900/1901) to Experience and Judgment (published in 1939), Husserl expressed clearly the difference between meaning and object. He identified several different kinds of names. For example, there are names that have the role of properties that uniquely identify an object. Each of these names expresses a meaning and designates the same object.[69] Examples of this are "the victor in Jena" and "the loser in Waterloo", or "the equilateral triangle" and "the equiangular triangle"; in both cases, both names express different meanings, but designate the same object. There are names which have no meaning, but have the role of designating an object: "Aristotle", "Socrates", and so on. Finally, there are names which designate a variety of objects. These are called "universal names"; their meaning is a "concept" and refers to a series of objects (the extension of the concept). The way we know sensible objects is called "sensible intuition".
Nothing I didn't know as a child. A common complaint about postmodern philosophers, among many other, is the writing of long chapters about something very simple that everybody knows, saying things a child also knows but written in complicated language. Like most critics of postmodernism, I find such an activity a waste of time.
Through sensible intuition our consciousness constitutes what Husserl calls a "situation of affairs" (Sachlage). It is a passive constitution where objects themselves are presented to us. To this situation of affairs, through categorial intuition, we are able to constitute a "state of affairs" (Sachverhalt). One situation of affairs through objective acts of consciousness (acts of constituting categorially) can serve as the basis for constituting multiple states of affairs. For example, suppose a and b are two sensible objects in a certain situation of affairs. We can use it as basis to say, "a<b" and "b>a", two judgments which designate the same state of affairs. For Husserl a sentence has a proposition or judgment as its meaning, and refers to a state of affairs which has a situation of affairs as a reference base.
Here is another thing I have complained about before: claiming this thing is actually based on "categorical intuition" or is "experience itslef". But it is totally false. This is all built on ability to process information, not on intuition. This ability to process might happen automatically, with little awareness involved, such as when walking down the street and putting one foot after the other or when driving. But that is based on ability to process done automatically, not on intuition.

If a person is mentally retarded, he will not be able to make sense of things that appear in his experience. That meaning that Husserl is speaking about will not appear if the person is severely mentally retarded. There is no mystical intuition existing there, just ability to process. Same as a computer can process an information about a virus if there is an anti-virus software installed, but is unable to do so if there is no such software.


It is incredible how many philosophical sudoku games can be made out of a simple situation of being having the ability to process information. You can go on speaking about this for centuries and can built a trillion philosophies about it. And within such a sudoku theory, you can have internal logic. In the 2+2=4 example, even though it was just a satire, my argument did have some internal logic. And since these sudoku theories have internal logic of their own, the person might conclude "but from this angle of looking of the sudoku theory, the conclusions would be like this". And when we see reality is different from our conclusions from sudoku theories, we then go and say "there is ultimate reality and conventional reality" and then say "these conclusions are correct when it comes to ultimate reality, even though conventionally things are not like that".

What we have done here is just name a sudoku theory internal logic as "ultimate reality". The thing is, the sudoku theory is simply a wrong theory based on a wrong angle of looking at things, same as in the example with the 2+2=4 or the example with the mechanic I gave before. All the conclusions from the sudoku theory will be meaningless in any practical sense. If you want to call it "ultimate reality", then all conclusions of this ultimate reality will be meaningless too in a practical sense, it's just the naming of it that is different. This is why postmodernism is often called "the homeopathy of social sciences". These sudoku theories are divorced from reality, they don't offer anything useful when it comes to understanding the world.

And this is the big problem of postmodernist like Hussel, Satre, Heidegger etc. It is also a problem to some extent for rationalist philosophers. This is why western philosophy has failed in explaining the world. It's just a wrong angle of looking at things, divorced from reality. And this failure of normal western philosophy is what probably made postmodernism appear in the first place. With postmodernism we are totally divorced from reality. Just sudoku theories with internal logic but having nothing to do with reality. The theories of the second mechanic is my example surely have internal logic, but they have nothing to do with reality and are meaningless in any practical sense. As other have said: "Postmodernism failed because it failed to address human needs". It's simply an useless intellectual exercise.

We can never understand something if we are looking at things from the wrong angle, the angle of the second mechanic.
This is something many philosophers have failed to understand.
chownah
Posts: 9336
Joined: Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:19 pm

Re: Is this a proper test for solipsism ?

Post by chownah »

Dhammanando wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 3:26 pm
chownah wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 4:15 amI couldn't find a good definition of reflexion to illustrate what nanavira is talking about.
In the Oxford Dictionary it’s Reflexion definition #8.c
Frederick Furnivall and his Merry Men wrote: Philos. The mode, operation, or faculty by which the mind has knowledge of itself and its operations, or by which it deals with the ideas received from sensation and perception.

1690 Locke Hum. Und. ii. i. §4 By Reflection then,‥I would be understood to mean, that notice which the Mind takes of its own Operations, and the manner of them.
1692 Norris Refl. Locke's Ess. Hum. Und. 61 Ideas of Reflection are but a Secondary sort of Ideas [etc.].
1797–1803 Foster in Life & Corr. (1846) I. 177 A knowledge of sensation more than of reflexion.
1847 Lewes Hist. Philos. (1867) I. 98 Was there nothing to guide man but the reports of his senses? Democritus said there was Reflection.
1853 Abp. Thomson Laws Th. §48 Reflection is ascertainment of points of resemblance and points of difference.
Thanks for that. My initial reference was to my long ago french lessons where I learned about reflexive verbs...I am sure that you are familiar with this but for others who might be reading: a reflexive verb is a verb which takes the entity doing the action (the subject) as also being the entity receiving the action (the object)....for instance to bathe can be expressed by saying something like "I wash myself, you wash yourself, it washes itself, etc...

I have only casually been follow the discussions of nanavira etc. but it seems to me that this idea of the actor and the acted upon being closely related (like with a reflexive verb)might be what was meant when he used "reflexion". Is this madness?
chownah
User avatar
L.N.
Posts: 504
Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2016 6:01 pm

Re: Is this a proper test for solipsism ?

Post by L.N. »

Circle5 wrote: Sun Oct 29, 2017 6:26 pmIf a person is mentally retarded, he will not be able to make sense of things that appear in his experience.
Can you please try to explain your point of view without using offensive language. http://www.r-word.org/r-word-effects-of-the-word.aspx

Your proposed test is meaningless. You have some very serious blind spots. Not sure how to make you aware of them.
Sire patitthitā Buddhā
Dhammo ca tava locane
Sangho patitthitō tuiham
uresabba gunākaro


愿众佛坐在我的头顶, 佛法在我的眼中, 僧伽,功德的根源, 端坐在我的肩上。
User avatar
Coëmgenu
Posts: 8149
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:55 pm
Location: Whitby, Canada

Re: Is this a proper test for solipsism ?

Post by Coëmgenu »

Circle5 wrote: Wed Oct 25, 2017 5:32 am
Coëmgenu wrote: Tue Oct 24, 2017 6:23 pm
Circle5 wrote: Mon Oct 23, 2017 7:11 pmAs you can see, there are many variations of solipsism. But, in current use of the term, as far as I know it is generally used to describe any philosophy claiming material form is a product of perception

[...]
No!

These theories are non-substantialist theories.

[...]

Solipsism means that you think "only you" exist. That is the root of solipsism. Nothing about external reality. It 'means' only you exist. Theories about the substantiality or nonsubstantiality of the world follow therefrom.
So if one believes their family members will not continue to exist after they die, does this not imply that they only consider themselves to exist, and not their family members ? :juggling:
Look at it this way, you used to use the example of a car about to hit someone. So, lets go back to that. All of this, I have to say of course, IMO.

You are J walking. A car is about to strike you. After it kills you, it will continue onward and kill several people behind you on the sidewalk. After you are dead, does the car continue and do the people behind you still die on account of that continuing car?

The answer is yes, the car will still continue on doing what it was doing and the people behind you will still die, killed by that very car. This is because no one (well, to be fair, some people say this, but they are a far more eccentric and small minority than you think, IMO) argues that "empty of inherent existence" or even "asvabhāva" has ever meant that causality does not exist and that causes and conditions do not interact. Saying that the car is "empty of car" simply means that there is no "true identity" that is the "fundamental 'car' essence" in a way that is indivisible and irreduceable. You can break the car down into its constituent parts. You can also break the car down into the experience of the car. You cannot find the discreet "only-car" essence. Because it does not exist.

A lot of people are what I would like to call "Emptiness Mystics" IMO. If I wanted to be less generous I would call these unnamed and unspecified peoples "para-Madhyamakas". You would call them "Emptiness Eel-wrigglers". Suññavikkhepa perhaps. 像空性之扭動, to use the language of the āgamāḥ.

That is, they do a great job, standing on the shoulders of the Madhyamaka giants, in declaring emptiness to not be whatever anyone just described it as, regardless of however they just described it.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
User avatar
Circle5
Posts: 945
Joined: Wed May 31, 2017 2:14 am

Re: Is this a proper test for solipsism ?

Post by Circle5 »

Coëmgenu wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2017 2:17 pm You are J walking. A car is about to strike you. After it kills you, it will continue onward and kill several people behind you on the sidewalk. After you are dead, does the car continue and do the people behind you still die on account of that continuing car?

The answer is yes, the car will still continue on doing what it was doing and the people behind you will still die, killed by that very car. This is because no one (well, to be fair, some people say this, but they are a far more eccentric and small minority than you think, IMO)
And that minority includes the Nananandians who respond that they don't know weather the car will kill those people or not.
Saying that the car is "empty of car" simply means that there is no "true identity" that is the "fundamental 'car' essence" in a way that is indivisible and irreduceable. You can break the car down into its constituent parts. You can also break the car down into the experience of the car. You cannot find the discreet "only-car" essence. Because it does not exist.
But who is arguing otherwise ? That is like claiming "I believe the world is not flat" and also claim that you are in a small minority of people who see the world in a non-conventional way. Like there would be a huge majority of people out there believing it is flat. That's the definition of fighting a strawman.
User avatar
Coëmgenu
Posts: 8149
Joined: Mon Jun 13, 2016 10:55 pm
Location: Whitby, Canada

Re: Is this a proper test for solipsism ?

Post by Coëmgenu »

Circle5 wrote:
Coëmgenu wrote: Tue Nov 07, 2017 2:17 pm Saying that the car is "empty of car" simply means that there is no "true identity" that is the "fundamental 'car' essence" in a way that is indivisible and irreduceable. You can break the car down into its constituent parts. You can also break the car down into the experience of the car. You cannot find the discreet "only-car" essence. Because it does not exist.
But who is arguing otherwise ? That is like claiming "I believe the world is not flat" and also claim that you are in a small minority of people who see the world in a non-conventional way. Like there would be a huge majority of people out there believing it is flat. That's the definition of fighting a strawman.
Honestly? I don't know. Its a pretty dumb idea isn't it? That there is a distinct "only-car" essence. And that there is "only-X-dhamma" essence for any given dhamma. But it seems people used to believe this, quite possibly on an "official religious dogma" level.

People also used to believe that the entire world was made of ether in the form of irreducible prime particles. These particles, it seems, took on the qualities of Nibbāna or the 'Unconditioned' in the minds of Indian atomists.

Then you get Mahāyānis critiquing that position as such:

Objection: But how do we really know that the Buddha intended an esoteric meaning when he spoke of the
senses and their objects? Are there not external, really existing elements [that is, atoms] . . . that, when joined together into
aggregations, form the objects perceived through the senses? [Didn't the Buddha recognize the underlying atomic structure
of the objective material world?]

Yogacara Reply: [The Buddha could not have accepted the atomic theory.] "The existence of atoms cannot be
proved because an object of perception is never a unified entity [that is, a whole without parts], nor is it several distinct
atoms, nor is it even an aggregation of atoms."
[Ven Vasubandhu, Viṃśatikākārikā, verse 11]

and

"One atom joined to six others would have six sides [for the other six to attach themselves to]. Or do the other six
atoms occupy the same place [space] as the first? Wouldn't the seven then be one [that is, wouldn't there be just one atom
instead of seven]?" Furthermore, some atomists2 argue that, since an atom has no parts, it is impossible for atoms to join together into
aggregations. And yet, these same atomists claim that aggregations of atoms can join with other aggregations to form larger
aggregations. "But if atoms cannot aggregate in the first place because they have no parts, how can there be any atomic
aggregations to subsequently aggregate with one another? Whatever has parts cannot be a unity [that is, cannot be indivisible]."
[v 12-14a]

So it seems that people, at one point, literally thought that atoms were Nibbāna, or something similarly eccentric of the like. People have believed all sorts of weird business.
Circle5 wrote:But who is arguing otherwise ?
I think the argument is the same as with pernicious self-view, which must be severed from and vomited out, as it is largely an unconscious process that we do without trying, self-reifying, that is to say is. That is one perspective. We do this even (i.e. presume fundamental essences for 'things') though we think we don't.
What is the Uncreated?
Sublime & free, what is that obscured Eternity?
It is the Undying, the Bright, the Isle.
It is an Ocean, a Secret: Reality.
Both life and oblivion, it is Nirvāṇa.
sentinel
Posts: 3236
Joined: Sun Jun 04, 2017 1:26 pm

Re: Is this a proper test for solipsism ?

Post by sentinel »

:woohoo:
You always gain by giving
Post Reply