Nikolai wrote:He did, and the whole time he was saying this isn't it, this is just a finger pointing at the moon - a raft to be discarded. And alongside the eightfold path and the four noble truths he taught impermanence, dependent origination and the Middle way - all of them intellectual arguments. ...
But you still have to walk down the bleed'n' arm! I don't see many western 'buddhists' giving-up their goods and depending upon alms? I see a shit-load talking about what the middle-way means.
I'm interested why you capitalise the B in Body? Are you trying to connote something different from the conventional sense of the word body. As for the connections of the body - these perceptions (or thoughts) of connectivity are also fleeting and transient.
I'm giving it the same import many give to Mind. When are your arms not in view? What is that weight when you shut your eyes? How can you touch your nose this way? How far back can you actually see? If you still very still and practice I don't doubt you can get these phenomena or state of 'mind'.
Does the tree in your garden exist while you're consciousness is preoccupied with ice cream? How do you know? ...
Why would I care? Lets say I did, then yes a tree exists in the garden whilst I'm scoffing ice-cream but no its not the tree that exists when I actually go and look at it. That tree exists at the same time as the rest of the ice-cream I put in the freezer. Lets say you leave the room to look at the tree and your ice-cream has melted when you got back. How do you account for the change?
Ever walked into a lamp-post whilst engrossed in your ice-cream? Where was that before?
And then, as a further experiment, substitute the tree for any of the various perceptions that you think are you're body. Do they continue to exist? How do you know?
Having real trouble unpacking this. When in body motion where is any sign of not existing?
That this constitutes a problem is your realist prejudice. The idealist's world is fluid and stays with them wherever they go. It is always before them in its entirety. Maybe you should go back to your Hegel, he's probably the purest of the them all.
Well I've heard he was an absolutist idealist. Is this you, existence as Mind, with itty-bitty other 'minds'?
Its an excellent argument, but is a realist's rationalisation. Perhaps you don't notice it because its not happening?
Or perhaps I've taken time out to notice it happening? But I've lost exactly what I'm not noticing now?
Again, I'm not trying to convert you to idealism. I'm just trying to get you to see how they explain the world - and its equally as plausible and coherent as the realist.
I've read the originals and I still think Kant makes the tightest case, but for me, if I was going for the metaphysics, the currently radical choice would be Leibniz, as i reckon you could tie a nice physics spin around it, given that its all particles at present.
Or....There is nothing more obvious than what it happening here and now, there is nothing more obvious and intently empirical. And 99% of the time your body is not in the here and now of awareness.
For me, that's because the Body is the ground for the here and now of awareness, its actually in the just before awareness game, so really there and then.
When the various thoughts, perceptions etc that are normally associated with the body are seen as identical with those of the outside world the normal grounds of distinction between body and world are extinguished. The content of perceptions (eg trees) are viewed as being as dreamy and ephemeral as thoughts of monsters. A monster and a tree pass before you in an identical fashion.
Try touching them, better still, take a running charge.
What, then, is 'in here' and what is 'out there'. Subject and object have completely merged into one another. It is the distinction between subject and object that is most untenable. You might therefore be tempted to say 'everything is my subject' or 'everything is my object' but even this is unsatisfactory. Subjectivity only makes sense in contradistinction to objectivity and vice versa. All that can be said is that the subject/object distinction is born out of illusion. The split is only possible if one fails to notice that thoughts and perceptions are also identical.
No, the 'split' is natural, subjectivity only makes sense in the case of Others and the Body recognises like Others, the gaze as its been put. Subjectivity is forced upon one in a sense otherwise the world would be perfect.
This is transcendental idealism. Its an excellent argument and until you come to grips with it you won't be in a position to reject it and understand what I'm saying here.
Well I've certainly forgotten a lot about the position. Mu current remembrance is that its Kants apriori 'world' of 'mind'. My slant is much of it is Body's based upon an existent 'reality'.
As I've tried to make clear to you, idealism is intensely empiricist as well. The conclusions of idealism only come about because they are unwilling to assume anything other than is right before them. Berkeley is good on this point - he was starting where Locke left off.
Depends what you mean? As I doubt Locke would agree with Berkeley. Can you call what you talk about as "Idealism"? As I agree that the early idealist could be considered empiricist but your view? As you say we cannot 'trust' the senses?
Idealists can make toast as well as realists. Toast is a practical skill known for millenia. There are a whole host of theories that might fit it, not just scientific ones. Berkeley would doubtless have claimed that God makes the toast.
He'd be wrong then, as it burns when you're not looking and toast burns so 'God' can't have been looking. Its why my metaphysicians produced the toaster, it keeps on looking so no burnt toast.
The moment a phenomenologist talks about their experience they fail to be phenomenologists. What they turn into can be deduced from the language they use. Personally, I don't think you understand the phenomenologist's method. If you had a clear sense of what bracketed experience is actually like I think you would be more attuned to its ineffability. The way you translate your so-called experience into words and theories is remarkably glib. ...
In what sense? As I'm unaware that I've said what a "bracketed experience is actually like "? As I'm pretty sure I said that where I left Husserl was that he gave no clear techniques that I could apply. I guess I could have reverse fitted techniques I already knew about but that seemed unphilosophical.
Not sure where I talked about my experience either but I'll be surprised if "experience" does not become an issue in a field that proposes to explore subjective phenomena?
When you meditate you are not training your body. When you do a million stretched and poses in hatha yoga, guess what...you are not training your body.
I accept that the 'mind' comes into this and that 'training' can be misunderstood, but the physical part is exactly to exercise the body it the shape where it can sit properly, all the tendons, muscles, skeletal structure in repose. Its why I think the Buddha smiles, not that its not that he might be enlightened either.
If this is hard for you to understand it is because you have a one-sided belief about what your body is.
Or that I've followed different 'eastern' meditations.
The body is not something that needs to be beaten into submission. The body needs to be understood. Philosophy is an excellent way to do this, but I recognise that alone it is insufficient. Thinking needs to be complemented by sitting still and looking. If there was the slightest chink of scepticism about your body I think you would really take to meditation because it would help you to explore who you really are.
Not if it means I come back having trouble with Others and reality. But I agree its not about submission but coherence, timing and synchronicity, as such moving about with others also pays dividends in body understanding, breathe idiot! I think thinking can be complemented in having a bit of a sit and contemplation about "What is called thinking?".
Look, why don't you do me a favour - as an old friend. Sit still on a cushion for 20 minutes every day for the next month. I promise you that as a philosopher will find the results fascinating. All those beautiful idealists who have left you 'stunned' will suddenly become crystal clear. ...
Stunned that anyone could be so hubristic, not stunned in that I could not understand the whys and wherefores and appreciate them, had to write enough about them. So I do understand your fascination. But lol at the cushion, if I was going to use a western aid it'd be a float-tank I think, save on the exercise but you'd never quite know if its what the Buddha looked so serene about.
Reading philosophy I don't think gets better than with old Arthur Schopenhauer - its beautiful. As for renouncing idealism...we have to sooner or later but not just yet. ...
He was a curmudgeonly git and definitely wrote well, first philosopher I spoke aloud to, one sentence mind. But I'm unsure what sort of Idealist you are? As Schopenhauer and Hegel do not sit at ease. Kant's not Hegel nor is Leibniz. (what's Spinoza?)
Thoughts are every bit as concrete as trees to your average human, if not more so. You only have to work with the mentally ill to see that some thoughts, mere superstitions, are as real and as terrifying as anything that is, as you put it 'real'.
See the words, "mentally ill"? I don't doubt beliefs are stronger than reality, as they do not touch it. For your position, I'd ask the person to close their eyes and charge the tree. When they come around ask them what happened?
As for what it 'thoughting' there are a few things to say. Firstly, nothing is thoughting because thought is now recognised as being indistinguishable from perceptions, so we must drop this term thought.
Or we could redefine "perception" as what the neuro-biologists, etc, explore and "thought" what the philosopher explores.
You are therefore left with the question: 'what is This that is happening?' But there is only the questioning in existence, all else has passed away from awareness. So we are left with just 'what is this?' - the world is nothing more than this simple question. Well, then the question passes and something new comes up. A tree perhaps. Then perhaps the question again: 'what is this? ...
Its a tree, the clue is in the word.
It is a question that can't be answered because it does not refer to anything. 'What is this?' It is no longer a question about something but an event in itself. When this is seen the question is accepted and by being accepted is left unanswered. This is the end of enquiry.
And the start of waffle I think.
To the average human the end of enquiry happens in other ways. No one knows where the universe came from so the question isn't answered - it is the end of enquiry. In 99& of cases this end of enquiry lurks but is never acknowledged. Some realists start to trace their worldview back and then find the end of enquiry waiting like a brick wall. After this point they can't take all their science and theory as seriously as they once did.
To the 'average' human such enquiries don't even start. I think what you describe is your experience of what happened to you when you said you lost your faith in Psychology.
Sorry out of time...
No worries.