The Debate of God.

[cottage]

Stop denying reality. Are you saying that 'pondfrogleapsplash' is not true of the world? It comes first and facts about it secondly. Therefore, it is closer to the source than fact. In fact, it IS the source!

You misunderstand. The question, if you remember, which I’ve put several times, was for you to explain what is true of the world independent of facts. (FYI: facts, being a product of experience, are not true, which is why they are contingent.) Your answer was simply to reorganise facts and claim them as something external to facts.

I do not deny factuality; I merely recognize it as a product of thought, and not of reality itself. There is no factuality present in reality. Factuality is developed by a systematic process of the rational mind. Reality is living; facts are dead. You are confusing the one for the other, as many people mistakenly do.

Facts, not being true, do not enable knowledge, which makes them distinct from mind. And that isn’t speculative metaphysics or some kind or revelation but as been understood for millennia, whereas your argument consists of bald assertions such as ‘There are no facts present in reality’, without any accompanying explanation of what you suppose reality to be – other than the tautological response that it is a state without facts! The term ‘reality’ refers to the world, as it actually is, which is experienced with all its faults and false perceptions, rather than idealistic, wishful, or mystical notions. So the term ‘true reality’ in the way you use it is a misleading appellation, because it doesn’t describe anything meaningful and it certainly cannot be demonstrated. All we’ve seen in this discussion is an attempt to argue from perceived effects to a supposed cause, and that of course is because the effects are all you have to work with. But that’s the reality.

 

[cottage]

No, it is for YOU to answer, as I never claimed an experiencer of the experience, nor a principle-creating entity: YOU did. Now put up. There is no experiencer of the experience: there is only the experience itself which is YOU.

I have already stated that there is no logically demonstrable or necessary Self, and therefore there is no experiencer or principle-creating entity, nor any ‘YOU’ or ‘I AM’, which is the same thing. But throughout your argument there is a proposed self or experiencer, such as the claim to ‘see’ true reality, the classic ‘My own direct experience’ (1093), the ‘awakened mind’ (1071), or ‘man’s true nature’ (1290), and also ‘I’m giving you what my mind knows’. We arrive at the absurd but amusing conclusion to all this at the foot of the page.

Just because a statement claims true knowledge does not make it so. What is your reference for determining that something is illusory? Come on, now. Stop beating round the bush.

Whoa there! What are you insinuating by accusing me of 'beating round the bush'? I promise I will always respond directly to any questions. The cajoling isn’t necessary.


‘Just because a statement claims true knowledge does not make it so.’ Yes! That is precisely the whole point of my argument with you. And with that firmly in mind there are two things to consider here, and they are that true knowledge cannot be false, and that no experience can be proved a priori. Thus it is an illusion to claim that ‘true reality’ or any experience is true. For anything we can conceive to be existent we can conceive to be non-existent since no distinctly conceivable experience implies a contradiction if denied. In other words, nothing is demonstrable unless the contrary implies a contradiction, and as no experiential thing is demonstrable there is therefore no true experience’. (‘Experience’ is observation, participation, or any imagined thing that is not logically certain.)

Of course it knows that! That is why it is true nature!

So if it already knows that then why does it have a Eureka moment about itself?

Again, I am using convention. There is no "I" which sees this; there is only seeing itself.

It is way more than just a 'convention'. You simply cannot avoid using the term, for without it you have no argument. And 'seeing' requires an observer.

Enlightenment is not the gaining or attainment of anything, but the REALIZATION of the already-enlightened state. There is no 'knowledge-seeking thing' in enlightenment. All of that is only illusion. It vanishes as a dream vanishes upon awakening.

First off you’re attempting to split hairs here when realization and enlightenment have the same meaning, and it is incoherent to say the state of enlightenment had a ‘realization’. Look again at your own words: “Only when one’s consciousness is expanded can one see how this occurs as it is occurring.” And: “When one experiences awakening, this condition dissolves, and one experiences his true nature, which is the process of awakening from delusion into the enlightened state.” So something here is self-evidently the receiver, receptor or beneficiary of the ‘realization’, but if there is no ‘I’ then the conclusion is that it must be ‘true reality’, or what you’ve called the ‘experience itself’, that does the ‘seeing, and that is to say it becomes aware of itself! Logically there needs to be some identifiable thing that is mistaken in its contingent understanding in order to posit some entity that is not mistaken in what is not contingent, but if the mistaken thing and the unmistaken thing are the same thing then you are lead into contradiction if you’re also proposing that the unmistaken thing (‘true reality’) to be simple (ie has no parts), immutable, and without a beginning or an end.

 

[cottage]

You are confusing mind with consciousness.

I would appreciate a response to my post, and an argument in support of the above statement, if you don't mind?

 

[PolyHedral]

Appearances are not reality. Quantum Physics shows us that.

Hmm, yes, it shows us that maths is reality. Not what you meant?

 

[godnotgod]

Hmm, yes, it shows us that maths is reality. Not what you meant?

No. Math is about something. It is a description of some law or principle.

What I meant was that, and math I am sure is a part of the discovery, that what we have come to know as hard 'reality' is not actually what we thought it to be. The behavior of particles and energy in QM go against classical science and ordinary human understanding about the world.

 

[godnotgod]

]You misunderstand. The question, if you remember, which I’ve put several times, was for you to explain what is true of the world independent of facts. (FYI: facts, being a product of experience, are not true, which is why they are contingent.) Your answer was simply to reorganise facts and claim them as something external to facts.

'pondfrogleapsplash' is not a statement of factual knowledge. If it were, the person involved would have known it were to occur. 'pondfrogleapsplash' is a totally spontaneous, living, experience that synchs with a consciousness that is completely open and empty of any thought, idea, or preconceptions. The facts about it come after analysis.

'pondfrogleapsplash' is true of the world because it is a direct expression of the world itself, without it drawing attention to itself as 'fact'. It does'nt need to do that in order to be valid. It is inherently valid in and of itself.

Facts, not being true, do not enable knowledge, which makes them distinct from mind.

facts and mind are apples and oranges, though they are related, just as apples and oranges are fruits.

It appears you are referring to a knowledge other than factual knowledge. Facts are absolutely necessary to factual knowledge. They are what factual knowledge is built upon. When I refer to true nature, I am referring to knowing, rather than knowledge.

And that isn’t speculative metaphysics or some kind or revelation but as been understood for millennia, whereas your argument consists of bald assertions such as ‘There are no facts present in reality’, without any accompanying explanation of what you suppose reality to be – other than the tautological response that it is a state without facts!

While facts are not an aspect of reality as such, I am NOT saying that reality is merely a state without facts. Facts do not enter into the picture, as I have explained, until thought is applied. There is ordinary reality, which is the 'hard' reality we have all come to know and love, and which is now being proved to be without substance by QM, and there is Ultimate or True Reality, a state of consciousness in which it has always understood ordinary reality to be illusory. The paradox is that they are one and the same. True Reality is just the way things actually are. When one sees it exactly as it is, one is enlightened. When 'pondfrogleapsplash' is experienced without the obstruction of the experiencer, it is seen exactly as it is.

The term ‘reality’ refers to the world, as it actually is, which is experienced with all its faults and false perceptions, rather than idealistic, wishful, or mystical notions. So the term ‘true reality’ in the way you use it is a misleading appellation, because it doesn’t describe anything meaningful and it certainly cannot be demonstrated. All we’ve seen in this discussion is an attempt to argue from perceived effects to a supposed cause, and that of course is because the effects are all you have to work with. But that’s the reality.

To know the world as it actually is, one must also include the background against which the world is being manifested as 'the world'. When you focus only on the world itself, you are deluded; when you include both the background and the world in your view, you are enlightened. To include both is true reality. The background is the Absolute; the world is the Relative. If you do not understand this, you see the rope as a snake; you see the world as 'real' rather than the illusion that it is.

 

[godnotgod]

So if it already knows that then why does it have a Eureka moment about itself?

Because IT is pretending not to know, in playing at being all the myriad forms of the universe, as rocks, stars, trees, animals, as well as cottage and godnotgod.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v90O2aeW4KA

 

[cottage]

Because IT is pretending not to know, in playing at being all the myriad forms of the universe, as rocks, stars, trees, animals, as well as cottage and godnotgod.

So true reality pretends not to know? Pretends to whom, or for what purpose? I refer you to what you said previously, which was that ‘enlightenment is the realization of the already enlightened state’. But if there is no ‘I’ or Self then it can only be ‘IT’, or your ‘true reality’ realizing that it is ‘true reality’! But how can that be ‘true reality’ if it has doubts or realizations about itself? And as pointed out earlier a thing cannot be both mistaken and unmistaken (or contingent and necessary). Your ‘Absolute’ or ‘True reality cannot be simple, immutable and without beginning or an end because by your own argument it has the sameimperfections and divisions found in the material world.

 

[cottage]

'pondfrogleapsplash' is not a statement of factual knowledge. If it were, the person involved would have known it were to occur. 'pondfrogleapsplash' is a totally spontaneous, living, experience that synchs with a consciousness that is completely open and empty of any thought, idea, or preconceptions. The facts about it come after analysis.

'pondfrogleapsplash' is true of the world because it is a direct expression of the world itself, without it drawing attention to itself as 'fact'. It does'nt need to do that in order to be valid. It is inherently valid in and of itself.

The terms you’ve used 'pondfrogleapsplash', are facts, ie they are compounded from experience, and the statement itself contains nothing that is true or self-evident, and therefore it is nothing more than an assumption or empty speculation. And “inherently valid” and “inherently valid in and of itself” is utter gibberish. On the subject of validity consider the following examples.

All mystics know the truth
All humans are mystics
Therefore all humans know the truth

And:

All mystics are deluded.
All humans are mystics
Therefore all humans are deluded.

Both arguments are valid but neither of them is sound. Truth doesn’t follow from validity. If the premises are true then the conclusion will also be true. So from what major premise do you begin? What is true of the world (because it cannot without contradiction be false) independent of facts and experience? I keep asking that question but never get a proper answer from you.

facts and mind are apples and oranges, though they are related, just as apples and oranges are fruits.

It appears you are referring to a knowledge other than factual knowledge. Facts are absolutely necessary to factual knowledge. They are what factual knowledge is built upon. When I refer to true nature, I am referring to knowing, rather than knowledge.

There is no ‘factual knowledge’. There are inductive truths, the ‘truths’ of which only apply to the present experience and can never be an argument for the future. If you know something in vernacular terms then the above applies, such as ‘deciduous trees lose their leaves in winter’, or humans don’t live to be 300 years of age’. But that isn’t knowledge because deciduous trees don’t have to lose their leaves in winter and humans could live to be 300 years of age. And ‘knowing’ and ‘knowledge’ both refer to certitude, and you can’t speak of knowing a thing to be true without it being true. Therefore ‘knowing’ cannot be distinct from ‘knowledge’.

While facts are not an aspect of reality as such, I am NOT saying that reality is merely a state without facts. Facts do not enter into the picture, as I have explained, until thought is applied. There is ordinary reality, which is the 'hard' reality we have all come to know and love, and which is now being proved to be without substance by QM, and there is Ultimate or True Reality, a state of consciousness in which it has always understood ordinary reality to be illusory. The paradox is that they are one and the same. True Reality is just the way things actually are. When one sees it exactly as it is, one is enlightened. When 'pondfrogleapsplash' is experienced without the obstruction of the experiencer, it is seen exactly as it is.

It certainly doesn’t need QM to prove reality to be contingent when the Greeks understood that over two thousand years ago; and QM being part of the contingent world isn’t the supreme authority on existentialism since it has exactly the same fault lines as every other matter of fact! You keep saying things as if they were true, but with no argument or demonstration to that end.And your last two sentences contradict one another, a fallacy that has been evident throughout the discussion.

To know the world as it actually is, one must also include the background against which the world is being manifested as 'the world'. When you focus only on the world itself, you are deluded; when you include both the background and the world in your view, you are enlightened. To include both is true reality. The background is the Absolute; the world is the Relative. If you do not understand this, you see the rope as a snake; you see the world as 'real' rather than the illusion that it is.

Well then, the question to be asked is: What is this ‘background’ against which the world is being manifested as ‘the world’?

 

[godnotgod]

Well then, the question to be asked is: What is this ‘background’ against which the world is being manifested as ‘the world’?

Earlier, as you were talking about illusion and that you knew what an illusion was, I asked how you are able to determine that, but you gave some unintelligible reply. Now I ask again: by what reference are you determining that something is illusory?

 

[godnotgod]

So true reality pretends not to know? Pretends to whom, or for what purpose? I refer you to what you said previously, which was that ‘enlightenment is the realization of the already enlightened state’. But if there is no ‘I’ or Self then it can only be ‘IT’, or your ‘true reality’ realizing that it is ‘true reality’! But how can that be ‘true reality’ if it has doubts or realizations about itself? And as pointed out earlier a thing cannot be both mistaken and unmistaken (or contingent and necessary). Your ‘Absolute’ or ‘True reality cannot be simple, immutable and without beginning or an end because by your own argument it has the sameimperfections and divisions found in the material world.

I see you consistently use the word 'Self' with a capital 'S'. This refers to the authentic, or universal eternal Self, as contrasted with the egoic self. When Yeshu and Prophet stated "I AM", it is to this universal Self to which they refer, and not to the separate, egoic and temporal self that is born and dies. So to speak about the Self is to speak about being Enlightened, but here there is no egoic "I" that is enlightened. There is only Enlightenment itself. In other words, 'Self' is Enlightenment. Because the Self is eternal, Enlightenment is always present.

The clue to why the Self decides to transform itself into all the myriad forms of the world and to forget that it is the Supreme Intelligence, has to do with play.

 

[godnotgod]

The terms you’ve used 'pondfrogleapsplash', are facts, ie they are compounded from experience, and the statement itself contains nothing that is true or self-evident, and therefore it is nothing more than an assumption or empty speculation. [/COLOR]

The individual terms themselves are not facts, but labels. Facts refer to the behavior and properties of phenomena, not to their names. However, taken altogether as 'pondfrogleapsplash' is a single event which occurs prior to any facts being formulated about it. The pond, the frog, the leaping, the splash, and the observer are all one single event. Nothing from this event has yet been 'compounded from the experience'. Only the experience is valid at this point, and its validity is understood immediately at the moment of experience. Any 'compounding' comes later.

Now, the rest of this issue has to do with how we know that the experience is a valid one, which is connected to the reference we use to determine illusion from reality. That reference is our true nature, which is the Absolute.

If we mistakenly see a rope as a snake, that is illusion, and the experience is not a valid one. We are merely hallucinating, due to mental conditioning. That is why I stated that the observer in 'pondfrogleapsplash' must have an empty mind in order to SEE the event without distortion.

 

[godnotgod]

Maya Lila: The Game of Consciousness according to Hinduism (edited)

“When one accepts entry into the game as a player, awareness of unity is lost in the obsession (fascination) of play. This taking-over of consciousness is the fun of play. The One becomes many, to play a game of cosmic hide-and seek with itself.



The One [the background; the Absolute] is Reality. Multiplicity [the world of things] is illusion. This illusion of multiplicity is created by the veiling power of the One (the Supreme Consciousness). This veiling power is called maya. This veiling power creates the illusion of self and other, which creates ignorance in the individual consciousness. This ignorance comes to individual consciousness through the (concept of) mind, and so efforts must be made to stop the modifications of mind, to arrest mind, to stop the inner dialogue, to go beyond the mind, to realize one's true nature, beyond the illusion of me and mine; self and other. The world of names and forms is maya. This illusion can be seen at every level. It is the individual ego which creates separate units of existence - but this is itself maya (illusion). Ego cannot function without mind, as mind cannot without sense-organs. So it is only after the mind is brought to a suppressed state that the sense of me and mine can be completely annihilated.



This state can be achieved, and an end brought to this illusory sense of being an independent unit. After realization of truth through a direct experience of reality, maya can be understood - and the human psycho-drama can be observed as divine play, or lila. Maya is the power which brings forth the evolution of the phenomenal world.

Cosmic Consciousness becomes individual consciousness by its own maya. This diversity in unity is illusion, and is caused by the veiling power of the Supreme Consciousness. All that the player perceives of the phenomenal world exists within himself.



Two (duality) comes into being when 1 repeats itself. Two is maya, because both were present in the One. The two are the internal and the external world; the unmanifested and the manifested, male and female, light and darkness, gross and subtle, Absolute and maya, Noumenon and Phenomenon. Two is therefore the number of maya or illusion, the universal play of cosmic energy.”

EDITOR'S CHOICE: Maya Leela: The Game of Consciousness
*****

'From the One came the Two;
From the Two came the Three;
And from the Three came the Ten Thousand Things.'

Tao te Ching

 

[cottage]

Earlier, as you were talking about illusion and that you knew what an illusion was, I asked how you are able to determine that, but you gave some unintelligible reply. Now I ask again: by what reference are you determining that something is illusory?

You've completely ignored the question, and instead asked another that has already been answered!

What I wrote was perfectly clear and concise. If it was unintelligible then it must be because you didn’t understand it.
I said true knowledge cannot be false, and that no experience can be proved a priori, and thus it is an illusion to claim that any experience is true: “For anything we can conceive to be existent we can conceive to be non-existent since no distinctly conceivable experience implies a contradiction if denied. In other words, nothing is demonstrable unless the contrary implies a contradiction, and as no experiential thing is demonstrable there is therefore no true experience.”
So, with no experience being true (which ironically happens to be the essence of your argument), it is an illusion to claim that an experience is seen that cannot be false; so what is “the background” against which the world is being manifested as the “’world’”, which you say is impossible to be false?

 

[cottage]

I see you consistently use the word 'Self' with a capital 'S'. This refers to the authentic, or universal eternal Self, as contrasted with the egoic self. When Yeshu and Prophet stated "I AM", it is to this universal Self to which they refer, and not to the separate, egoic and temporal self that is born and dies. So to speak about the Self is to speak about being Enlightened, but here there is no egoic "I" that is enlightened. There is only Enlightenment itself. In other words, 'Self' is Enlightenment. Because the Self is eternal, Enlightenment is always present.

The clue to why the Self decides to transform itself into all the myriad forms of the world and to forget that it is the Supreme Intelligence, has to do with play.

It is going to be very difficult to take seriously anything you say after reading that last hilarious and contradictory sentence. ‘True reality’, which you’ve maintained is simple (un-extended, consisting of no parts) and immutable, is now changeable and divided! And this ‘Supreme Intelligence’ forgets that it is omniscient and a single entity and pretends and plays at being something other than what it is! Now, really!
So it would seem that your ‘true reality’ has dementia and forgets that it is ‘Enlightenment’ and wanders off dressed in the clothes of the temporal world, which its sympathetic carers excuse as ‘play’.

Your argument has now become a comedy of errors. But to be fair, you are only quoting dogma that others have written and those guys are ahead of me on this one since they’re evidently aware of the contradiction and have tried to forestall any objections with a preposterous defence. Nonetheless, a contradiction remains and it knocks down the entire edifice as well as inviting ridicule and mockery.

 

[cottage]

The individual terms themselves are not facts, but labels. Facts refer to the behavior and properties of phenomena, not to their names. However, taken altogether as 'pondfrogleapsplash' is a single event which occurs prior to any facts being formulated about it. The pond, the frog, the leaping, the splash, and the observer are all one single event. Nothing from this event has yet been 'compounded from the experience'. Only the experience is valid at this point, and its validity is understood immediately at the moment of experience. Any 'compounding' comes later.

Now, the rest of this issue has to do with how we know that the experience is a valid one, which is connected to the reference we use to determine illusion from reality. That reference is our true nature, which is the Absolute.

If we mistakenly see a rope as a snake, that is illusion, and the experience is not a valid one. We are merely hallucinating, due to mental conditioning. That is why I stated that the observer in 'pondfrogleapsplash' must have an empty mind in order to SEE the event without distortion.

You are not getting the point of what I’m saying. The terms you’ve used refer to facts, which together with the sequence you described are compounded from experience. The point I’m making over and over again is that you can tell us nothing that isn’t predicated upon the phenomenal world. So for the umpteenth time what is it about this supposed ‘true reality’ that makes it true, without reference to any worldly phenomena?

And you are either misusing or misunderstanding the term ‘valid. Look at what you’ve written. You are saying: We know our experience of the Absolute is valid because we can refer to our true nature, which is the Absolute! That circular argument is fallacious because the unproven major premise is the same as the conclusion.

Your argument should take this form: There is the Absolute or true reality, therefore the contingent world is illusory (A, then B) but since you’ve not been able demonstrate A you are only supporting your claim by an appeal to B, as in if A then B; B, therefore A (fallacy of affirming the consequent). The matter cannot be settled bythe argument B is false therefore A is true, but only by demonstrating: A, thereforenot not-A. And you have signally failed to do that!

 

[godnotgod]

And you are either misusing or misunderstanding the term ‘valid. Look at what you’ve written. You are saying: We know our experience of the Absolute is valid because we can refer to our true nature, which is the Absolute! That circular argument is fallacious because the unproven major premise is the same as the conclusion.

You are again twisting things that I am saying. That is not what I said. I said:

Originally Posted by godnotgod:

Now, the rest of this issue has to do with how we know that the experience is a valid one, which is connected to the reference we use to determine illusion from reality. That reference is our true nature, which is the Absolute.

Please don't retort that they are the same statement.

 

[godnotgod]

You've completely ignored the question, and instead asked another that has already been answered!

What I wrote was perfectly clear and concise. If it was unintelligible then it must be because you didn’t understand it.
I said true knowledge cannot be false, and that no experience can be proved a priori, and thus it is an illusion to claim that any experience is true: “For anything we can conceive to be existent we can conceive to be non-existent since no distinctly conceivable experience implies a contradiction if denied. In other words, nothing is demonstrable unless the contrary implies a contradiction, and as no experiential thing is demonstrable there is therefore no true experience.”
So, with no experience being true (which ironically happens to be the essence of your argument), it is an illusion to claim that an experience is seen that cannot be false; so what is “the background” against which the world is being manifested as the “’world’”, which you say is impossible to be false?

Your gobbledegook is clear evidence of your confusion, and you have not answered my question.

My question is quite simple. You spoke of illusion. All I am asking you is: how do you know it to be an illusion?

 

[godnotgod]

‘True reality’, which you’ve maintained is simple (un-extended, consisting of no parts) and immutable, is now changeable and divided! ....

That it is changeable and divided is the illusion. You are not reading thoroughly!

And this ‘Supreme Intelligence’ forgets that it is omniscient and a single entity and pretends and plays at being something other than what it is! Now, really!

I did not say it forgets; I said "awareness of unity is lost in the obsession (fascination) of play"

So it would seem that your ‘true reality’ has dementia and forgets that it is ‘Enlightenment’ and wanders off dressed in the clothes of the temporal world, which its sympathetic carers excuse as ‘play’.

Illusion is a kind of play. You agreed that the world is illusory. Do you think the universe to be then a serious matter, because that is the only other alternative to it having a playful nature, and if you think to to be of a serious nature, then that makes the idea even more laughable, which also makes it a form of play.

 

[Tiberius]

Your gobbledegook is clear evidence of your confusion, and you have not answered my question.

My question is quite simple. You spoke of illusion. All I am asking you is: how do you know it to be an illusion?

Considering that you have made unsupported claims and used vague phrasing and undefined words in your arguments, all I can say is...

Pot. Kettle. Black.