/lit/ - Literature

>>16912125
It's literally just a bizarre reification of the phenomenological experience of changing values and perceptions into fundamental ontology. It would be fine except for westerners appropriating it to say nonsensically that consciousness is somehow an illusion to itself

>>16912148
Yeah
If anatta is a strategy for detachment okay
But if its an ontology then it doesnt make sense

>>16912237
You haven't thought about it long enough

>>16912125
You are not retarded, it doesn't make any sense at least not as an ontological claim. You can't negate the knower or who makes the negation? If there was nobody to make the claim it there would be nothing to negate and no statement of negation.

The only way for it to make sense IMO is the Coomaraswamy/Ken Wheeler/ Caroline Rhys Davids interpretation whereby anatta is a negation of all that is not the indwelling spirit, i.e. the "not this, not this" of the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad.

>>16912148
Even in the Buddhist philosophical writings though they use it as a basis to make foolish and absurd claims about consciousness such as that there is no observing sentience independent of individual thoughts and sensory perceptions, it's not like anatta as found in Buddhist literature makes sense and it is only dumb westerners who don't get it but also the Jain, Hindu and Tantric philosophers all attacked Anatta as nonsensical as well.

Sunyata = Nirguna Brahman

>>16912500
Is this that guy who spammed like 400 guenon threads a day a while ago

>>16912500
Ken is right about Sanskrit coming after Prakrit, but you don't believe that do you, Sankarafag.

>>16912500
>Ken Wheeler
These are /lit/'s idols everyone, a squeaky voiced fat contrarian, truly this board is a failure

>shit's made of parts
>shit changes
>plato didnt know shit
What exactly don't you get?

>>16912675
Yes. /p/ also hates him for completely unrelated reasons.

>>16912125
Yes, you are retarded, just like pretty much every other anon in this thread.

>>16912713
Ken Wheeler hates Guenon, try harder, Sony user.

>>16912713
>>shit's made of parts
>>shit changes
there's definitely a perception that memories are a real thing

How can there be bliss in nirvana when there is no observer? How can there be anything? Genuinely asking.

>>16912755
Memories are made of parts; memories change. Neuroscience, independent of Buddhism, confirms this. The feeling of continuity is real, that feeling, like all feelings, has causes.

>>16912768
Nirvana isn't a place, it's a state. You're currently in (the state of) Nirvana. You're also in (the state of) Samsara. You want to stop doing what keeps you in (the state of) Samsara.

Nirvana is a state of limitless freedom. It's bliss beyond bliss. It's observation with no observers, and vice versa. It's a fundamentally mystical state that cannot be put into words (to do so would be to limit it). This makes hyper-rationalist materialists on /lit/ really mad, but if you don't like being told that reality is bigger than you, religion isn't really your thing.

>>16912780
>Memories are made of parts; memories change.
this, changne or no, creates a very powerful impression of continuity. if I do something today, I bet I will remember tomorrow

>>16912799
Thanks, I understand that an absolute reality may be hard or impossible to articulate, but what are the philosophical justifications for something like 'observation with no observer', what observes? I assume everything is one and everything is empty, but if so, who observes, where is the ISness of reality to be found?

>>16912681
>Ken is right about Sanskrit coming after Prakrit,
proof?

>>16912841
Buddhism has this thing called the Two Truths Doctrine. You have Conventional Truths that are ultimately couched in "you know what I mean". Like, if I tell you to come eat because dinner is read, you don't say ACTUALLY I SEE NO DINNER JUST AN ASSORTMENT OF FOOD WHERE IS THIS "DINNER". We know that "dinner" has no ontological "realness" to it because it's made up of parts (the people attending, the food, the time, etc). Buddhism doesn't deny that things exist, it just argues that they exist in a certain way. This way is Dependent Origination, everything is dependent upon something else for its existence. Ultimate Truths are statements that do not rely on "you know what I mean" for their truth (ignore the fact that all language requires a degree of "you know what I mean" here for a second).

So while we can say that there is an observer, this is a Conventional Truth. We see that that observer is made up of parts. Buddhist theories of the mind do not believe in a singular consciousness, but rather a multitude of mental phenomena. The actual awareness of a phenomena, Vijñāna, is translated as "consciousness". The Vijñāna is the result of some sensory phenomena (there is a sixth sense, mind, which is what you use in memory, and when you talk to yourself in your head, visualize things, etc). So, it's not that Buddhism denies that mental phenomena occurs, but rather that it rejects the idea that there's a black box in your head. It also rejects Noam Chompsky's ideas about a formula that is the "real you", for what it's worth.

At a grander point, there is no ontological "ground". It's turtles all the way down, and up. Indra's Net, everything exists because of everything. There is no base line, it's an infinitely high stack held up by infinitely many things below it (this is India, so "infinity" is really common; there is, for example, an infinite history in the past, and an infinitely far future; there is no "point of creation").

Where is the observer? The same place everything else is: made up of parts.

>>16912681
Ken also likes to contradict himself too, which is why I don't take him that seriously, like when he says that Vivekachudamani and Upadesasahasri are Shankara's only authentic works (which is retarded) but then in the same video will recommend AJ Alstons collected translations of Shankara's arguments and then praise those as the best thing ever and as proof of Shankara's genius despite the contents of Alstons work coming 99% from the same prose commentaries Ken also thinks are not by Shankara.

>>16912987
do you know how intentionality is understood?

>>16912768
There cannot be, bliss can only be experienced by sentient entities. If there is no entity who be be or experience bliss, then the bliss is purely metaphorical.
>>16912987
>We see that that observer is made up of parts.
Sentience cannot be analyzed into constituents parts though for the reason that the sentience which does the analyzing is inevitably the subject but not the object of the analysis; just as the eye cannot perceive its own color.

>>16912987
In the state of nirvana, how do things like bliss come about, or any 'thing' for that matter. How can things be borne from nothingness?

>>16913049
It's important. In the Pali Canon, the Buddha says that intentionality is a key point behind karma. Running someone over with your car by accident is not the same as swerving onto the sidewalk to smear them, for example. Later thinkers take this and run with it, however, and come up with all sorts of theories of the mind relating to how exactly it works. The Buddha was a man focused on soteriology, so there are certain questions that he doesn't touch on because they're largely irrelevant (what intentionality "is" doesn't matter as long as you have good intentions). Later thinkers, however, open up a massive fucking autistic can of worms about this sort of thing. You can find advocates of freewill, of determinism, of compatibilism, etc.The following article namedrops some thinkers on the subject:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-indian-buddhism/#3.5

>>16913075
The fact that we can separate out smell, sight, taste, touch, hearing, and mind as separate things instead of just once sensory experience is a demonstration of the fact that mental phenomena are composite. The fact that we can demonstrate the arising and dissipation of mental phenomena is a demonstration that they are composite. The eye cannot see itself precisely because it is composite; if it were not, it would see everything, including itself, all the time.

>>16913116
"Nothingness" isn't a material. Neither is Emptiness, or Sunyata. This is a BAD belief to hold. Things aren't "made" of Emptiness, or Nothingness. "Empty" is a descriptor. Think of it like upside-down icecream cones stacked on top of each other. They aren't made of Emptiness, they're Empty and given fullness by things that are also Empty.

Nirvana isn't a state of nothingness (Buddhism rejects "nothingness" as just on its face not existing), it's a state of freedom. Everything is currently in that state, it's just also held down by another state.

>>16913178
>https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mind-indian-buddhism/#3.5
cool, thanks anon

>>16913184
Welcome. I feel bad because this is sort of a copout to just pass the buck with a link, but it's really easy for people to underestimate just how large foreign philosophical traditions are. Buddhism is a 2.5k year old philosophy spanning the entirety of Asia, asking what the Buddhist opinion on some topic is is like asking what the Western opinion on some topic is: You have schools within schools and God knows how many thinkers in those and on and on and on.

>>16913178
>they're Empty and given fullness by things that are also Empty.
is the reason they are empty because as mental objects they sort of generate what they generate and then go away? like ice cream will generate its amount of enthusiasm, then will disappear from the mind?

>>16913199
yea of course... but it's kind of a.... I think of it as the biggest mystery of cognition. where does the will come from. since there seems to be a quite sophisticated philosophy of mind going on in buddhism, I figured what the hell

>>16913178
>The fact that we can separate out smell, sight, taste, touch, hearing, and mind as separate things instead of just once sensory experience is a demonstration of the fact that mental phenomena are composite.
Mental phenomena =/= consciousness or sentience. You are not touch, you are aware of touch.

mental phenomena appear to sentience, sentience can analyze mental phenomena, but it cannot analyze itself

>>16913221
>You are not touch, you are aware of touch.
Not in most Buddhist schools. The subject and the object are the same due to dependent origination.

>>16913221
>sentience can analyze mental phenomena, but it cannot analyze itself
is it really sentience that does this? aren't the analyses by necessity based on words? couldn¨t this just be another sense?

>>16913233
>The subject and the object are the same due to dependent origination.
that's neat. I suspect this is what Alan Watts tries to allude to by speaking of "one occuring"

>>16913233
>The subject and the object are the same due to dependent origination.
Yes but this is obviously wrong, since I at once can feel objects while retaining my identity as a sentient entity who is different from them.
>>16913235
A more proper definition would be that the sentience observes the mind doing so, but all the same analysis cannot be directed at itself, since there is always someone who is the subject who is aware of analysis, it is not an unconscious process, but you cannot be both the subject and object of analysis at the same time, this is a reflexive relation and Nagarjuna himself rules these out as untenable

>>16913276
what do you think would happen if sentience had nothing to be sentient of? honestly curious, I am this anon>>16913244 and it rather pertains to that too. if I understand correctly and the non-dual take would be that there is only sentience when there is something to be sentient of, then what would happen if there was nothing

>>16913276
>Yes but this is obviously wrong, since I at once can feel objects while retaining my identity as a sentient entity who is different from them.
Sentience is nothing without an object of sentience. If a consciousness were to be left with nothing to observe it would be the same as being non-existent. However, objects also do not have an inherent existence outside of name-form which comes from consciousness. I wanted to find a quote for this so here's one from the Vijnana wikipedia page:
"It is as if two sheaves of reeds were to stand leaning against one another. In the same way, from name-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness, from consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-form....
"If one were to pull away one of those sheaves of reeds, the other would fall; if one were to pull away the other, the first one would fall. In the same way, from the cessation of name-form comes the cessation of consciousness, from the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of name-form...."
Basically the idea of "I" is derived from both consciousness and name-form, which in turn rely on each other.

>>16913474
>objects also do not have an inherent existence outside of name-form
in the sense that an "object" as differentiated from the other "objects" only exists to an observer that has an inclination towards perceiving "objects"? I sort of symbolize it as non-observed reality being like static on old tvs: there is nothing, but this nothing is something, just that no observer is objectifying it. something like this? I'm not sure I understand name-form. is it somethiing like a property of the observer that he categorises?

>>16913547
This will give you some good info:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/madhyamaka/
Basically name-form refers to the names assigned to apparent forms. The mind differentiates things from each other and assigns names to them. The point of realizing emptiness (mainly Nagarjuna's conception) is that words have no inherent existence and do not actually describe an object (ex: the word red does not actually tell you what red is). This is in part because words only have their meaning in relation to other words and that objects exist in relation to other objects. The interdependent relationship between objects and the interdependent relationship between words makes it difficult to actually describe when one "thing" ends and the other begins. Something is there, but it has no self-nature, meaning it is dependent on other things, making it empty of an essence. Like that other anon said: emptiness is not a substance, it is a descriptor (a descriptor that is also empty).
Sorry if this is a poor or messy explanation. Dependent origination and Sunyata are tough concepts to write about, and I'm also in the process of learning about it.

>>16913689
no this is very educational anon, thank you. I would go on but I have to sleep. So take care, based buddhist-anon.

>>16913303
>what do you think would happen if sentience had nothing to be sentient of?
It would still be sentient of itself, as it is is self-revealing. Sentience being sentient only of itself is basically non-dual consciousness or samadhi.

>>16913474
>Sentience is nothing without an object of sentience.
False, sentience or consciousness is immediate and self-revealing. Consciousness/sentience cannot be held to be momentary and dependent upon changing and momentary objects or sense-inputs.

For, had it been so, it would have appeared different at every different moment. If it is urged that, though different consciousnesses are arising at each different moment, yet on account of extreme similarity this is not noticed; then it may be replied that, if there is difference between the two consciousnesses of two successive moments, then such difference must be grasped either by a different consciousness or by the same consciousness (if it is the second then its not momentary and not dependent on objects).

In the first alternative the third awareness, which grasps the first two awarenesses and their difference, must either be identical with them, and in that case the difference between the three awarenesses would vanish; or it may be different from them, and in that case, if another awareness be required to comprehend their difference and that requires another and so on, there would be a vicious infinite regress which would prevent the having of knowledge of anything.

If the difference be itself said to be identical with the nature of the consciousness, and if there is nothing to apprehend this difference, then the nonappearance of the difference implies the non-appearance of the consciousness itself; for by hypothesis the difference has been held to be identical with the consciousness itself. The non-appearance of difference, implying the non-appearance of consciousness, would mean utter blindness. The difference between the awareness of one moment and another cannot thus either be logically proved, or realized in experience, which always testifies to the unity of awareness through all moments of its appearance.

It may be held that the appearance of unity is erroneous, and that, as such, it presumes that the awarenesses are similar; for without such a similarity there could not have been the erroneous appearance of unity. But, unless the difference of the awarenesses and their similarity be previously proved, there is nothing which can even suggest that the appearance of unity is erroneous. It cannot be urged that, if the existence of difference and similarity between the awarenesses of two different moments can be proved to be false, then only can the appearance of unity be proved to be true; for the appearance of unity is primary and directly proved by experience. Its evidence can be challenged only if the existence of difference between the awarenesses and their similarity be otherwise proved. The unity of awareness is a recognition of the identity of the awarenesses, which is self-evident.

>>16913206
More or less, yeah. The icecream is made, it's eaten, it was delicious, where did it go? It's part of you now, so it's not "gone", but it's clearly not here anymore.

>>16913244
This ties into why Buddhism isn't physicalism, in that Buddhists don't believe that the brain "causes" mental phenomena. The object that is seen also plays a role in "seeing". It's a complete rejection of subject-object duality, which (as Buddhists argue) is really just a linguistic figment that we use to make communication easier. David Bohm, a physicist, tried to come up with an alternative linguistic framework that does away with subject-object duality, he later ditched it because it's literally just infinitives and adverbs.

This is important in Buddhism vs Hinduism, as in Hinduism, the universe actually operates according to Sanksrit grammatical principles, so the Buddha is doing something that's importance is really easily lost here.

>>16913689
To add onto what you've said, Indra's Net is a metaphor used to describe this. In order to ever use a word truly correctly, you'd have to accurately describe how it relates to literally everything. This is ALSO why Buddhism is not physicalism, as in Buddhist thought technically everything is actively partaking in a relation with everything, meaning that Pluto is actually impacting you right now, however miniscule that impact might be.

For ease of communication, we just make a LOT of shortcuts to avoid having to constantly talk about what Pluto is doing to you.

>>16913824
I'd have to consider the rest of your post for a while but in regards to your first sentence.
>False, sentience or consciousness is immediate and self-revealing.
In what way is consciousness self-revealed? Is it revealing itself to itself? What would the consciousness of consciousness be? Would one not be aware of awareness of awareness into infinity.
In a more concrete example say consciousness perceives a box. One can be aware of the awareness of the box (meaning they would just be aware of the box again upon thinking of the moment it cognized the box), but once there is nothing to cognize, what is there to be aware of. Without something to cognize, it would be empty of contents. If it has no contents, how could it self-examine and be revealed to itself.

>>16912681
>Ken is right about...