Richard Dawkins Facepalms at Deepak Chopra

[godnotgod]

That is why I dislike the term "consciousness"...because it is so vaguely defined that people like you can interpret it however whimsically you want. You have a hard time doing that if I replace the term consciousness with "interaction".

No, it is interaction that is misleading.

 

[godnotgod]

Interaction theory does seem to work at all scales, quantum through to cosmological.

Really! And what is this 'interaction theory'? Some New Age poppycock, I suppose. Something akin to 'New Age Hinduism', perhaps?

Wait! I know! It's the relationship of Newtonian world with the Quantum world, which don't touch each other. ha ha ha ha. Get out.

 

[godnotgod]

Indeed. I would take consciousness out of the equation altogether. I just wish I had the scientific background to take this whole "interaction" idea a step further...to make an actual working theory out of it. I think it has potential to work as an actual theory because it does not seem to violate any known scientific facts or laws of physics, rather it seems to support them, or they support it. It is rather simplistic at this stage, but it does seem to work.

I think the Buddha already has you beat by a couple centuries, with The Law of Interdependent Origination and the principles of Yin and Yang.

Theory? I thought you earlier claimed that interaction was a proven scientific fact.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

No, it is interaction that is misleading.

If you could suspend your knee-jerk reaction to anything that doesn't fit with your entrenched belief system, you might actually learn something here.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

I think the Buddha already has you beat by a couple centuries, with The Law of Interdependent Origination and the principles of Yin and Yang.

You believe in Brahman, so I don't know why you keep going on about what Buddha said. Sunyata and Brahman are mutually exclusive in case you'd forgotten.

By the way yin and yang are from Taoism and not Buddhism, but as usual you just want to throw everything randomly into your surreal new-age cake mix.

 

[godnotgod]

You believe in Brahman, so I don't know why you keep going on about what Buddha said. Sunyata and Brahman are mutually exclusive in case you'd forgotten.

You are still in the realm of duality, I am afraid, clinging to names and labels, thinking them to represent reality. Burn them! Free yourself!

"Sunyata is the only ground reality for the life of Atman. Atman without Sunyata would be like motion without energy.

In a similar vein, it can also be said that "becoming" Sunya or being in (the field of) Sunyata is virtually the same thing as being or "becoming" Atman. It is important that we recognize the negative overtone of Sunyata and its cognate Anatman has, as its counterpoint, an affirmative undertone. There is the negation of the unawakened self---the self centred in an individualized field of consciousness and shackled to the perspectives tied to it. This negation forms the basis for a spontaneous affirmation of becoming awakened or enlightened---becoming a decentred self. In essence, consciousness-as-Sunyata manifests itself in the form of consciousness-as-Atman.

What transpires from the above discussions is a thesis that is better characterized in terms of convergence of Buddhism and Vedanta than in terms of their complementarity to one another. Of course each is a complementary perspective to the other in so far as our making coherent sense of either position is concerned. What we gain from such a complementary understanding of the allegedly incompatible juxtaposition of these two ancient systems of thought is that their apparent difference betrays a profound underlying unity. We have intimations of a "hidden" Atman of Buddhism on the one hand, and of the "silent" Sunyata in Vedanta on the other. A deeper study of the Vedantic Atman-theory results in making the otherwise silent metaphysics of emptiness resonate with a persuasive explanatory voice, much as a scrutinizing look at the Buddhistic Sunyata-theory manages to get a glimpse of the shadowy presence of a full-fledged Atman that explains the possibility of enlightenment."

http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/atmsun.htm
*****

By the way yin and yang are from Taoism and not Buddhism, but as usual you just want to throw everything randomly into your surreal new-age cake mix.

Yin Yang is also a Buddhist principle. Also found in Zen and Chinese Buddhism. But in general, Eastern teachings emphasize the non-duality of existence, which the Yin-Yang symbol represents.

Dharma Wheel

The dharma wheel, or dharmachakra in Sanskrit, is one of the oldest symbols of Buddhism. Around the globe it is used to represent Buddhism in the same way that a cross represents Christianity or a Star of David represents Judaism. It is also one of the Eight Auspicious Symbols of Buddhism.

A traditional dharma wheel is a chariot wheel with varying number of spokes. It can be in any color, although it is most often gold.

At the center sometimes there are three shapes swirling together, although sometimes at the center is a yin-yang symbol, or another wheel, or an empty circle.

http://buddhism.about.com/od/eightauspicioussymbols/a/The-Dharma-Wheel.htm



FYI, Zen was brought to China by the Buddhist monk, Bodhidharma, which then mixed with Chan, and later exported to Japan. Ray Griggs, in his book 'The Tao of Zen', proposes that Zen and Taoism are essentially the same teaching.

"The premise of The Tao of Zen is that Zen is really Taoism in the disguise of Buddhism--an assumption being made by more and more Zen scholars. This is the first book that links the long-noted philosophical similarities of Taoism and Zen."
Publisher

 

[godnotgod]

If you could suspend your knee-jerk reaction to anything that doesn't fit with your entrenched belief system, you might actually learn something here.

OK. Teach me about 'New Age Hinduism', the Theory of Interaction, and Buddhish. I'm all ears.

Oh, yes! almost forgot....teach me how the Newtonian world and the Quantum World do not touch, even though the Newtonian world is made up of the Quanum World. Ooooooh! I can't wait to be enlightened by Big Daddy himself.

Oh, shoot! And please do include in your illustrious teaching, precisely which belief system I am entrenched in. I haven't a clue.

 

[Runewolf1973]

Who is it that is not conscious while being highly interactive? So you're highly interactive but not aware of it.

(here we have yet another poker faced player of The Game, folks, all the while pretending NOT to be IT...clever...very clever...ha ha ha...they think they've got us fooled!)

You are sure good at twisting things around aren't you? Complex interaction gives us that feeling of "awareness". We are "aware" because of the high degree in which we interact. Perhaps you dislike my "theory" because it does not bode well for the whole notion of "Pure Consciousness" if our own consciousness can be explained using simple logic and reason. You are stuck on the the idea that consciousness should remain some great, inexplicable thing that only a mystic could ever hope to understand. Well...I guess you were wrong

 

[Runewolf1973]

No, it is interaction that is misleading.

No, it is consciousness that is vague, misunderstood, and therefore easily adorned with mystical interpretations.

 

[Runewolf1973]

I think the Buddha already has you beat by a couple centuries, with The Law of Interdependent Origination and the principles of Yin and Yang.

Theory? I thought you earlier claimed that interaction was a proven scientific fact.

That everything interacts in some way is a fact which can be easily tested and repeated.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

No, it is consciousness that is vague, misunderstood, and therefore easily adorned with mystical interpretations.

Yes, I think you've hit the nail on the head there.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Zen was brought to China by the Buddhist monk, Bodhidharma, which then mixed with Chan, and later exported to Japan.

Zen is a derivative of the Chinese Ch'an school of Mahayana Buddhism. "Zen" is derived from "Chan" which in turn is derived from "dhyana", meaning meditation. In any case yin / yang is a Taoist rather than a Buddhist idea.

And despite your attempt to muddy the water, sunyata does clearly contradict the Brahman-style reification of consciousness that you've been preaching for the last 89 pages. Sunyata means that consciousness is also empty, dependently arising, empty of inherent existence, so it directly contradicts your notions of "Pure Consciousness" and "Cosmic Consciousness."
http://plumvillage.org/news/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation/

You're trying to make out that Buddhist teachings support your new-age Hinduism, but they don't. You're trying as usual to force square pegs into round holes and making an awful mess.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

That everything interacts in some way is a fact which can be easily tested and repeated.

It might be interesting to start a new thread to look at consciousness as a complex interaction, maybe in the Science and Technology forum?

 

[godnotgod]

Complex interaction gives us that feeling of "awareness". We are "aware" because of the high degree in which we interact.

The high degree of activity comes about because of being conscious of something that then spurs it to a high degree. This is the perfect description of what spurs the average man on to Higher Consciousness: at some point in the life of the ordinary man (the Hide phase of Hide and Seek), he falls into the trap of suffering and discontent, and so he begins to seek some kind of higher ground (the Seek phase). It is because of his awareness that something is not quite right that he begins to seek. The entire process is one of expansion of consciousness. It is because of consciousness that action is initiated. Without this awareness of one's current condition, there can be no reason to take action. This expansion of consciousness is from less awareness to a higher degree of awareness, eventually leading to a state of inaction. The ordinary man, OTOH, pursues more and more activity in accelerated attempts to gratify his ego wants. His consciousness, rather than becoming expanded, becomes dulled and conditioned via knowledge and learning. He requires a high degree of interaction to keep the ego facade intact. The man who achieves Higher Consciousness becomes less and less agitated by the 'interaction' of the world, and his inner space becomes more and more calm and peaceful, as he no longer pursues ego gratification.

Perhaps you dislike my "theory" because it does not bode well for the whole notion of "Pure Consciousness"

Pure Consciousness is unaffected by your silly theory. The reason I dislike it is because it doesn't tell us anything of import. Sure, interaction is going on all over, but so what? Your so called 'theory' doesn't tell us anything about the nature of that interaction. I have already told you countless times what the nature of that interaction actually is, and not what it apparently is.

if our own consciousness can be explained using simple logic and reason.

It can't, because consciousness is outside the spheres of logic and reason. Logic and Reason cannot even explain what mind is, let alone consciousness. You are trying to explain consciousness via the use of consciousness itself, but consciousness cannot be an object of itself in an observer/object split. The only way one can understand what is going on is to allow consciousness to settle upon itself. This is not an intellectual process. There is nothing to 'figure out', and there is no such 'I' that thinks, therefore exists. The realization of Pure Consciousness is the complete and total merging of the observer with the observed. In this merging, the 'I' completely vanishes, because it was never there to begin with, just as the 'snake' in the rope was never, even for one moment , a reality. This is called Awakening, and what one awakens to is Sat-Chit-Ananda, existence-consciousness-bliss. That experience can never be 'explained' via Logic, Reason, and Analysis. All you end up with via those reductionist methods is a sterile and dead consciousness, one that is mechanical, materialist, predictable, and dumb, a dead thing that is no longer consciousness; no longer alive.

You are stuck on the the idea that consciousness should remain some great, inexplicable thing that only a mystic could ever hope to understand. Well...I guess you were wrong

Maybe you can recall the words of the Buddha, when he said: 'this Ordinary Mind is none other than Buddha-Mind!' The problem, you see, is that the ordinary man is already enlightened, but has not yet realized it, or better yet, is totally locked into the fiction of life, and has forgotten that the drama is just One Big Act; has forgotten his true nature that is that of the enlightened mind, thinking instead that the fiction he is playing out is what is real.

 

[godnotgod]

That everything interacts in some way is a fact which can be easily tested and repeated.

But the Buddha tells us what the nature of that interaction is. You, OTOH, don't know what it is.

 

[godnotgod]

No, it is consciousness that is vague, misunderstood, and therefore easily adorned with mystical interpretations.

It is only vague and misunderstood because the rational mind doesn't know how to approach it. The rational mind is attempting to conceptualize it, to encapsulate it, to 'figure it out', to seize control of it, but it can't because the mind is a creation of consciousness itself. The fact that you equate 'mystical intepretations' with mumbo jumbo is due to the erroneous and limited view of your rational mind. The mystical experience is not an interpretation of consciousness; it is the direct experience of consciousness itself. Reason and Logic give us an interpretation; the mystic gives us vision.

 

[Straw Dog]

Hello gng,

It is only vague and misunderstood because the rational mind doesn't know how to approach it. The rational mind is attempting to conceptualize it, to encapsulate it, to 'figure it out', to seize control of it, but it can't because the mind is a creation of consciousness itself. The fact that you equate 'mystical intepretations' with mumbo jumbo is due to the erroneous and limited view of your rational mind. The mystical experience is not an interpretation of consciousness; it is the direct experience of consciousness itself. Reason and Logic give us an interpretation; the mystic gives us vision.

Cute avatar haha!

Anyway, I share your skepticism about the limitations of the rational mind. However, I also question the limitations of mystical insight. It's kind of a left-right brain dilemma.

 

[godnotgod]

[/QUOTE]

Hello gng,



Cute avatar haha!

Anyway, I share your skepticism about the limitations of the rational mind. However, I also question the limitations of mystical insight. It's kind of a left-right brain dilemma.

The mystical view is that of unlimited consciousness, transcendent of Reason, which is a limited view of the limited mind.

 

[Straw Dog]

The mystical view is that of unlimited consciousness, transcendent of Reason, which is a limited view of the limited mind.[/QUOTE]

How can you ever really know definitively that consciousness is unlimited?

The mystical view is still just another view.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

The mystical view is that of unlimited consciousness.[/QUOTE]

You still haven't explained how consciousness can be unlimited when consciousness is limited by the senses.