A certain someone on this site has asked my to explain what is going on on this Facebook thread philosophically, if it relates to the Indian school of Non-Dualism.
I don't really get how to use Facebook, and sure don't want my account, with only one contact, to become "who I am" on that platform as my general philosophy is completely fuck Facebook, but sure, whatever.
The are in this quote, indeed interating the basic advaitian rejection of ideas, of knowing, and putting emphasis on perception, but in this case it isn't quite yet pure perception as Self/Universe, but still identifying formula, such as experience, as the perceived of That.In Hall of Mirrors you'll often see us use the word "experience", instead of the word "awareness". Or you might see us use the word "experience" instead of the word "reality".
We don't do this to reify the idea of "experience". We do it to DE-reify ALL IDEAS - especially "awareness".
We regularly say that the words "awareness", "experience", and "reality" can be used interchangeably.
We do this to emphasise the fact that words like "awareness", "experience", and "reality", are all NOTHING MORE THAN IDEAS about "this that is".
"Awareness", "experience", and "reality", are just ideas that REFER to "This that is".
Notice "this that is", exactly as it is.
Notice that without thought, there would be absolutely no reason to believe that "this that is", could be something appearing in something else (e.g. "experience" or "a world", appearing in "awareness").
Only thought says that "this that is" is made up of one idea that appears in another idea.
Only thought says that some of this is " the underlying reality" of the rest of this.
Only thought says that you are something in which "this" appears, or that you are something that appears in "this".
Only thought says that this is "emptiness", or that it is "fullness".
Only thought says that this is being created by something, or coming out of something.
Only thought says that some of this is inside you and some of it is outside you.
Only thought says that some of this is you, and some of it is not you.
Only thought says that some of this is stuff that is you, and some of it is stuff that "you experience".
Only thought says that you are aware of something other than what you are aware of, or something different to what you're aware of.
Only thought says that you are one amongst many.
Only thought says that you are a person in "this".
Only thought says that people are aware of what they say and do.
Only thought says that you are a thing doing something in "this".
And only thought says that you are the author of thoughts, and that you are the thinker of what they are saying, Regardless of the fact that you are clearly not able to decide which thoughts appear.
If you could, would you really choose to "think" thoughts about unhappiness, or stress, or a lack of peace?
So what does thought know?
Does it REALLY know that "this that is" is something appearing in something else, or as something else?
Does it really know that you are something that is disturbed by anything?
Does it have any idea what you are?
I-That-Is in advaita eventually seeks to blend itself into oneness, all three states being the same. Any "this or that" is "you" in this moment.
It is a rejection of time, place, persona, verbalized thinking, reminiscences, pain, pleasure, motivation beyond the immediate now. It isn't even skepticism, even radical skepticism, but rather a mantra to accept and reject simultaneously, in the same way a analogue security camera transmitting to a tv, but not recording does.
99.99% of the background chit chat noise made on this forum, and in the west about Duality vs Non Duality is ignorant and short sighted. I can't claim with certainty that Non-Dualism as a philosophy school started in India, as the pre-Socratic up to Aristotle and Theophrastus seemed aware of aspects at times of various schools of Dualism (Dvaita) and Non-Dualism (Advaita).... but in India, they certainly made it central, and brought it to the fullest level it is possible to express the divide. Just as we talk of Epistemeology and Ontology, as categories of philosophy to pursue and discuss for their own sake (this site is organized on this actually) the discussion in India of Duality and Non-Duality deserves as equally a wide categorization. Most we manage in the west is discussion of Solipsism, which is a class of Non-Duality, but isn't quite fully there, given the vast weaknesses and logical inconsistencies a person of that thought will face. The western Solipsists, simply put, will always been in more doubt about the authenticity of their belief because they lack the millennia old toolkit a non-dualist from India can drawl upon to convince themselves that they are all that there is phenomenally. West produces armatures, and Descartes unfortunately wounded us heavily in declaring his silly Mind-Body split as dualism. Liebniz Universal Monism is often mistaken for Non-Duality as well. Years ago it occurred to me this was a problem in San Francisco when I was sitting in a discussion about Duality and Non Duality in the San Francisco Philosophy Group, when it occurred to me despite even the presence of a Buddhist present in the discussion, nobody knew what the heck the phrases meant beyond Liebniz and Descartes. I had to walk them through it, and they found it utterly alien and bizarre.
The Non-Dualist movement has been growing for some time in the English speaking world. The Urban Guru Cafe on Second Life used to collect bloggers on the subject to do talks to large crowds numbering up to 40-60 people a meeting. The strategies are ludicrous, to convince each person that everyone else is but a figment of their imagination, that the phenomena of visualization is all that is, experienced, and that names, terminology was, meaning, knowing, fades away, isn't part of that experience. It is a favoring of the right hemisphere over the left, in killing language. It is a killing of the modes in the right of differation and judgement, driving towards blind exceptance.
Anyone doing a quick search of Advaita and Dvaita will quickly find out other subgroups exist. My particular branch is Cognitive Dualism, where I merely assert all awareness is dual, even advaitian passive awareness. It doesn't make any grandiose claims of God or Atheism, or presumes a ethics, etc. Just notes awareness can't be without Duality, that mechanisms are responsible for experience/awareness, etc.
The book I'm reading right now is Ratnakirti's Proof of Momentariness by Positive Correlation, I'm copying it word for word in a sketchbook so I can later on break it down further into it's basic essence, and make logical formulas out of it to explain it, in a illustrated manuscript down the road. One thing I noticed in his first argument in rejecting Cause and Effect, and Time.... is that he is using the same damn fucking pot that Dignaga used in his Hetuchakra. Seriously, how many ways can you make the same stupid allegorical pot NOT exist in Paradox or contradiction? I've seen this same Buddhist pot do more magic tricks between these two philosophers than I ever have seen any magician do in a show. The irony of Non-Duality is, it takes a hell of a lot of Dualism to reach a point of concluding Non-Duality is correct. The mind isn't set up to accept the Non-authenticity of instincts, or emotions, of the dynamism of being. So most Non-Dualist schools have a partial approach to it, going like. Nietzscheans with their "Beyond Good and Evil" position on Will to Power is a adoption of medieval Shavist thinking from the region we now call Pakistan, but was then India. Not a lot has been translated in the west, but he had access to Indologists (good friends with one) and brought a lot of concepts over. You'll find Heidegger is often take as a comparative figure in Non-Dual papers, some book size, pitting him off against someone like Dogen or Adi Shankara. I used to get excited when I saw a old book from India in English showing the comparisons and where they diverge years ago, back when it seemed so deep, but now I can't begin to give a fuck. I know enough to just go out and get a sandwich and not worry about people high off big philosophical names trying to figure out how Dasein sits in the whole mess of it all. It doesn't. It is a dead end road, you gotta basically lobotomize yourself to get to a point where the philosophy of Heidegger or eastern Non-Duality works.
Non-Duality isn't like the mediatation of the Jesus Prayer or Mantras of Tibetan Buddhism (well, Tibetan Buddhism does have a Non-Dualism school, they can't escape the debate either) where they keep saying words over and over to gain a psychological effect.... the goal is to vanquish language and verbalized thinking, or the need to orient to things, and just stare blankly out into nothingness. It is the Brahmo (not Brahmin, Brahmo) religion of India. Just waking up on the cusp of the void, staring out, not knowing place, history, your person.... just starring. That is what they want, and in theory at least, once they get there, they don't even want it, or accept it, or think about it. They are a potato. They are the mindless frog of Zen Buddhism. They shut down much of their brain.
It isn't worth therefore pursuing as you asked in the PM, logical fallacies. Logical fallacies for starters are merely pathways through the mind, preferring thinking along one cranial nerve while rejecting another, in order to achieve a desired ends in a debate. In a very narrow debate, debating say, medical techniques involving the spleen and a specific medicine.... rigorous logical fallacies to protect the discussion from inviting concepts like holy water and pixie dust into the discussion is generally good, as far as debating approaching a valid and viable medical solution. However, if you are just debating the seven bridges of Konigsberg, you can go much, much less strict, dropping 90% of the restrictions. Why? You are allowed, encouraged, to use more of your mind to solve a complex puzzle. You can perhaps do better than Immanuel Kant by asserting modes of mind that ethically doctors can't risk including. They have a strict specialization, a philosopher in a much more broader since doesn't have to accept those restrictions, as free thinking doesn't result (usually) in immediate deaths if they get it wrong. We have a dialectic we engage in, if we get it wrong, someone will eventually point it out, oh fucking well.... hopefully we don't cause too bad of a public tremor if our bad ideas are enthusiastically adopted by the public before the mistakes are found. Logical fallacies are designed to remove paradox, first and foremost (see Chryssipus's wiki page on logic, he was a Stoic logician, I take a opposite approach in embracing paradox as central to logic, we are both Stoa) or to forbid discussions or debates arbitrarily from embracing a line of thought presumed unhealthy or a dead end, or will cause the debate to abruptly end. I take the course most free, willing to go down most paths of the mind just for the sake of seeing how it works. I never accept someone crying logical fallacy, even if I'm silent and it isn't aimed at me, I encourage the debate to continue on as is, just for the sake of seeing how that LF sits naturally in the progress of the human mind and the natural dialectic. I've sat watching people just lie to one another fascinated about the motivations of doing so. Really, what is the point? They reached conclusions, and fairly thought out ones at times in the end, when they really shouldn't of under the current orthodoxy.
When it comes to Non-Duality, they just don't care about Logical Fallacies, so don't ask. You can argue and defeat them, if you are aware enough of the workings of the mind, but you'll find that ideas or knowledge won't stop them. They want that brain washing. They want that allure of peaceful nothingness to replace a trauma, from giving up their religion because Dawkins told them God doesn't exist, or because someone raped them, or because they were beaten, or alone, or tired of life, afraid to die. A long history and struggle through life is reason enough. Yeah, a very fast and knowledgeable thinker like myself can deconstruct every proposition faster than they can be proposed, seeing the parrern, and cut it off short.... but the motivation to follow through is still there. You've complicated their desire but not the motivations that drove them to explore such desires in the first place. The mind is looking for serenity as a respite from pain. For those not suffering much, merely intrigued with the unknowning, they will barely follow it, it will be a hobby at best. For those really wanting it, at a point, unless you are willing to jump in and stop each one by going through their case history, deep discussions about their childhood and the first time they wacked off or stole something, you've done nothing but annoy them. So let them be..... when they really, really demand to want it. You can do that Leonardo DiCaprio samurai beach scene from Inception if they indicate they are trapped in the logic and want out, but unless they want it, just accept their free will in deluding themselves, in destroying their brain from conditioning a way of viewing the world. We all, after all condition the mind for something, and no two Dualists will look at the world in the same way.
I recommend watching the Sanskrit movie (actual Sanskrit, not a modern language, has subtitles) about the life and philosophy of Adi Shankara. It was a post Buddhist school of Vedanta thought, of modern Hinduism. He was a important philosopher in this tradition. Groups like the Hall of Mirrors are a much more refined, method oriented version of this.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HoIomFriTwM
I myself am a Boydian, a Machiavellian, a Stoic and a Catholic. If I'm looking for a good thinker from India, I'm more likely to say Chanakya than Shankara. Doesn't mean I don't explore the different schools of philosophy frokmdiffernet civilizations and time periods though. It takes a very, very long time, I'm in my mid 30s, so have a few decades still to learn every major philosophical tradition of the recorded world. Advaita isn't something to trifle with until you earned the right to disregard it. It can be cleverly complex at the very points it seems simplistic, and the hardest parts of it are often the most shallow. I can glance at it now and call shit on it, but I have earned that right. It is much more complex than Solipsism is, and should be investigated by western philosophers, but I would argue against adoption. I'm hands off on what branch of Duality you can settle into, but do encourage philosophers to find or make a school of philosophy to settle in, even if it is just a eclectic mix. You should have opinions and come to your own conclusions. This irony of Advaita is, if followed sincerely, you won't be able to have opinions or conclusions of your own after a while. At least in theory. Only people in a truely Non-dual state are comatose. Everyone else is a fraud, or are bullshitting themselves.
Hence why I don't encourage mass crusades against that silly philosophy. Most are sincere self bullshitters, but once they come out of it all, what do they have? Same pains as before, and a awareness of a life wasted screwing around with nothing.
That movie again, I strongly recommend watching it.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HoIomFriTwM