Examining the fundamentals of QSR's philosophy

Discussion of the nature of Ultimate Reality and the path to Enlightenment.
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David Quinn
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Post by David Quinn »

Jason,
David Quinn: A thing always has the capacity to be mentally divided into parts.

So even though to you, in a particular moment, a thing might appear as a unity, another person could easily come along and conceive of it as having parts.

Jason: The existence of other people's consciousness, let alone the contents of their consciousness, is uncertain.
That's true, but not relevant to this issue. It is sufficient that we can imagine a hypothetical observer mentally breaking the thing into parts. The key point is that a thing has the capacity to be mentally split into parts at any time.

DQ: Or your own mind could do this in the very next moment.

Jason: You're making uncertain assumptions and predictions about a future state. The only certainty is in the way things actually are divided at the present moment. That alone invalidates your argument, but also in a similar way: how do you know the "thing" you see undivided one moment, is definitely the same "thing" that is divided the next moment?
The answer I gave above also applies here.

DQ: And regardless of whether you perceive a sphere as a unity or not, the fact still remains that such a sphere couldn't possibly exist without its two halves.

Jason: That's nonsensical and you are contradicting yourself. A unity is not divided: by definition. A unity does not have halves: by definition. And you previously said that all parts are mental projections, so if my mind perceives a sphere as a unity then it simply is a unity, there are no halves that "really" make up the sphere beyond my mind's perception of the unity-sphere. You need to make up your mind on this issue one way or the other, and stick to it.

Again, the fact that a sphere has the capacity to divided into parts at any time is the key point. That you might be blocking out the existence of this capacity while conceiving of it as a unity doesn't matter. The fact still remains that if Nature suddenly took away half of the sphere, the sphere would no longer be there. The continued existence of the sphere in the next moment is dependent upon Nature not doing this.

DQ: I'm not denying the appearance of boundaries in our moment-to-moment experiences. Indeed, it is only through the appearance of boundaries that consciousness can operate and we can distinguish anything at all. But nonetheless, these apparent boundaries only find their existence in the moment of their appearing to us. They aren't really "out there" in the world. They are simply a product of our conceptual frameworks.

Jason: Yes all we have is momentary appearance, that being the case, if boundaries exist in the moment then they are the very bedrock of what reality is. I find that your philosophy and book in general repeatedly try to cast boundaries in a light that suggests that they are unreal, imaginary, delusional, projected and so on, and I think that's one of the dominant and fundamental flaws with your ideas and/or your teaching style/arguments.

Maybe we are at cross-purposes here. I agree with you that in a particular moment the boundaries that we experience form the bedrock of reality. But this doesn't conflict with idea that boundaries are imaginary projections.

The fact that our minds contribute so much to what we experience in any one moment doesn't make it any less real in an experiential sense. All my point does is throw light on the nature on how these experiences are created.

J: Secondly, reality includes within it the mind, and if we take your belief that the mind creates boundaries, then reality must also therefore include the boundaries that the mind creates.

DQ: Yes, so when I say that there are no boundaries in reality, I am meaning it in the sense that there are no boundaries outside of what our minds "choose" to project onto reality at any given moment.

J: If there is nothing but/beyond/behind direct appearances of the moment, then why use the words "project onto reality"? That gives the impression that there is something beyond that can be projected onto. It suggests that appearances and boundaries are less real, because they are projected over real reality.
It helps people break free of the idea that things inherently or objectively exist. If a person can see that all beginnings and ends in nature are illusory, then he is a position to understand the interconnectedness of all things - or better yet, the formless nature of all things. When a person realizes, for example, that the boundaries of his own self have no more substance than the lines of longitude and latitude that we project onto the earth, then that can be a powerful, life-changing insight.

The imagined dichotomy of mind-projected-boundaries vs/onto realer-unitary-reality is a fantasty. There is just momentary appearance, which in the end means simply "there are boundaries", end of story.
The mind/physical dichotomy is very real for most people, and thus one's teachings and guidance have to be tailored to that end.

It is virtually impossible for a person to understand your point without going through all the intermediate stages. Indeed, that is the essential purpose of my book, to help people through the intermediate stages.

J: Third, pure direct experience at this exact moment shows that there is no lack of boundaries - this is beyond doubt.

DQ: Yes, the appearances of each moment are undeniable.

J: Agreed, so why imagine(or phrase ideas like) there is some reality that is beyond our perception of momentary apperance, upon which we "project" boundaries?

Because the average person locked within the conventional mindset, still being spellbound by the idea that the physical world objectively exists, will have more chance grasping the intermediate truths that I phrase.

In Buddhism, these intermediate truths are called "relative truths". They are truths which, while ultimately false, deal effectively with the issues that are being grappled by those who are still lost within gross delusion.

Another example of a relative truth is, "All things are created by the mind." While this is false from the ultimate perspective, it nevertheless has the capacity to help people break free of their attachment to materialism and objective existence.

Another example of a relative truth is, "There is only momentary appearance".

DQ: The fact that boundaries can change from moment to moment is proof enough that they are mentally-created.

J: If that's sufficient proof, then you have certainly set a low bar for proof in this particular instance.
How would you account for the fact that the same physical object can have different boundaries, depending on how you look at it?

DQ: For example, one person might conceive of the earth as ending at the surface of its land and oceans, while another person might conceive of it as ending at 50km above the surface where the atmosphere thins out. Who is right?

J: This is no proof whatsoever if you consider certainty as a necessity to progress in philosophy, which I do.
I don't consider certainty as a necessity to progress. It is the end goal of philosophy to reach certainty within a full understanding of the nature of Reality, but for the most part a person breaking free of his delusions is going to be relying on intuition and leaps of faith, rather than on any rock-like certainty. It is only later, when he reaches the end, that he can look back and see the absolute certainty of the steps he has made.

Rigidly tying yourself to absolute certainty at the very beginning can easily lead to the curtailing of your progress. The chances are, you will end up staying put in the only certainty that deluded people can ever know about - which is that experiences are happening.

DQ: Where a thing's boundaries are imagined to exist is dependent upon how one conceives of the thing in question.

J: If boundaries are absolutely certain and undeniable appearances, it is ridiculous then to say they are "imagined". Imagined compared to what? There is nothing imagined because there is no alternative, there is no hidden "non-imaginary" reality beyond these so called "imagined" boundaries.

Are you denying that the mind plays a role in shaping what we experience in each moment?

Jason: Whilst I think that fact alone lays to rest your argument, there is another problem in your argument. In your reply to my question above, you said that "it partly comes from many years of experiencing the way that seemingly-firm boundaries easily dissipate with a change of perspective". In other words, these recurring patterns of experience, from your past, give you reason to believe this. Yet if we look once again at your book, in the very same chapter we have been disussing, you write(about David Hume's ideas):

Quote:
"When we observe a match being struck to produce fire, for example, we cannot be certain that the striking of the match was the actual cause of the fire. Our minds merely observe a succession of events - first, the match being struck and, second, the flame erupting into being - and it is only through our past experiences of watching a similar succession of events that enables us to assume the two are causally linked. But we can never be sure that this assumption is valid."

So here in your book you are actually arguing the exact opposite of what you argue in your last reply to me! In your book, you say that recurring patterns of events from the past, cannot validly be used to form the sort of assumption that you have given in your reply to me. In other words, just because in the past you often found that boundaries changed when your perspective changed, you cannot validly assume that these two changes are linked.

DQ:You're right that one cannot use past empirical experience as a basis for proof. Empirical experience can only suggest truths. It cannot prove them beyond question.

Jason: So your proof is invalidated then. My very point was that part of your argument in your last post was based on the use of something resembling the scientific method, which went something like this:
1. The last fifty times my perspective changed, boundaries changed also.
2. There must be a link.
3. I'll assume therefore that boundaries are caused by perspective.

As I say, empirical experiences can suggest truths, but it is only later with logic and infinite understanding that these truths can be proven or disproven in an absolute sense.

-
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

David Quinn wrote:Another example of a relative truth is, "All things are created by the mind." While this is false from the ultimate perspective, it nevertheless has the capacity to help people break free of their attachment to materialism and objective existence.
I still have an issue with this type of thinking, so I will get into it again with you. Perhaps I have learned to articulate my thoughts well enough that we can get somewhere with it this time.

I believe it is far better to speak the direct truth right from the beginning. Kevin once explained it to me using the variant from historical philosophy “first there is a teapot, then there is no teapot, then there is a teapot.” To my mind, this is an unnecessarily roundabout way of getting to the goal. A more direct route would be that first you see a teapot, then you understand that it isn’t just a teapot. That way, you always have the teapot which was always there in the sense that you first saw it, but you just add Reality to it. Substituting one delusion for another can help people see things in more than one way, but it is unnecessarily violent to the mind and can turn away many – if not most especially in America – potentially great thinkers who know darned well from the beginning that there is a teapot there.

You, and some others, have questioned the preponderance of troubled people in philosophy. I now recognize that this very method of teaching may be the reason that only the “damaged adults” stay. Unless one has been raised in a culture with some Buddhist or Zen philosophy, one must be a bit damaged to accept it when someone insists that the teapot is not there. You and Kevin have believed from the beginning that philosophy must be introduced to the young because once someone is an adult, they will not accept it. Knowing the difference between the way children and young adults learn and how adults learn, I would say that the teapot/no teapot/teapot method would be highly ineffective with the normal adult mind. My method would open doors for the normal adult mind because normal adults can learn that there is more to the teapot than meets the eye – but if you try to feed them the ultimate falseness that there is no teapot, they are likely to call you a madman spouting BS and walk away. You have then lost the opportunity to expand that mind into wisdom.

Although children have a natural curiosity, the way the education system and traditional parenting styles treat a child’s mind, that natural curiosity gets stunted and will often atrophy. As a result, if something is not fed to them – and these philosophies are not, for the most part, in western culture – they will not learn it. Sometimes special causes prompt adults into expanding their minds after the external forces of parents and teachers are lightened, but by then they have had enough experiences to have a pretty set idea on what is real. If you can show them there is more to reality than that, they will add to their previous knowledge – and if you can show them that their previous knowledge was false, they will discard it for the new understanding. Those with some degree of natural wisdom will usually learn to distinguish truth from falseness pretty well, but they don’t have enough uncommon wisdom to fish out the truth from the falseness. They will see the ultimate falseness, and will discard the whole lot as poisoned meat. If you deliver Truth in purity, there will be no falseness to repulse them. You will have access to a much larger segment of society.

Kevin is right in that there is a countdown of sorts going on, and there isn’t time to waste. We do not have time to just catch the young and wait for them to grow and filter wisdom into society. We have to reach everyone at every stage of development.
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keenobserver
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Post by keenobserver »

Madam, the phrase in question is not what you may think, not really some clue meant to stimulate the mind into greater understanding.
Rather it is....well, maybe I shouldnt say, for then your ego may be tempted to cover its unnecessary shame by pretending you knew already, perhaps I should ask you to finish the sentence yourself, after which I will inform.

If you get it right, congradulations, Im impressed.
If you dont, then you might want to think twice before questioning the teachings of a stream of masters.
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Neither your guessing game nor your spelling impress me.
keenobserver
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Post by keenobserver »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Neither your guessing game nor your spelling impress me.
Well there was no need to hit below the belt and hurt my feelings. I know i such at spelling, not much better at writing, so what? Im not playing games i gave you a chance to prove yourself you chose not to, fine, Im not going to attack back, im not going to say your an ignorant old bag wasting your timr and our time here since you havent a clue about anything philosophical. Im not going to say that.
Im not going to say I think you would hightail out of here in 2 seconds flat if you had any idea what the people you are chatting with really thought about the condition of your mind. No, Im not going to stoop so low.
And say.......no, I wont do it. I wont come down to your level.
Slam me all you want, make fun of my little pecker or pot belly, now you know, there, have a field day you godd............]
ah forget it!
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

keenobserver wrote:Im not going to say I think you would hightail out of here in 2 seconds flat if you had any idea what the people you are chatting with really thought about the condition of your mind.
Yeah, I already know. I've read all the lovely things Kevin et. al. have said about women, and that despite their hedging that woman doesn't necessarily mean female, that females are women and embody all that is anti-wisdom in the universe. No matter what I say or do, even if I am right about everything 100% of the time (and no human can be), I will always be "just a woman" in the minds of these and most men. To the minds of most men, either consciously or subconsciously, because I am just a woman I am a useless piece of shit so it is not wrong to take advantage of me, lie to me, take anything I might have that they find of value and kick me to the curb when they are done with me. I already know, yet I am still here.

I also know that because I am female, and many men consider all females to be idiots, whenever I say anything intelligent I set myself up as a target for abuse because I do not fit into their paradigm. They will use whatever tactics they can to break me, but I stand up for the truth anyway. As a result, I am already as broken as I can be.

Now that we have that out of the way, was there anything else you wanted to say to me?
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clyde
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Post by clyde »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:As a result, I am already as broken as I can be.
We are all broken.
keenobserver
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Post by keenobserver »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:
keenobserver wrote:Im not going to say I think you would hightail out of here in 2 seconds flat if you had any idea what the people you are chatting with really thought about the condition of your mind.
Yeah, I already know. I've read all the lovely things Kevin et. al. have said about women, and that despite their hedging that woman doesn't necessarily mean female, that females are women and embody all that is anti-wisdom in the universe. No matter what I say or do, even if I am right about everything 100% of the time (and no human can be), I will always be "just a woman" in the minds of these and most men. To the minds of most men, either consciously or subconsciously, because I am just a woman I am a useless piece of shit so it is not wrong to take advantage of me, lie to me, take anything I might have that they find of value and kick me to the curb when they are done with me. I already know, yet I am still here.

I also know that because I am female, and many men consider all females to be idiots, whenever I say anything intelligent I set myself up as a target for abuse because I do not fit into their paradigm. They will use whatever tactics they can to break me, but I stand up for the truth anyway.
.
Its precisely talk like that more so than anything else you have said during your time here, that will make men think so little of you.
Real men would be impressed if you didnt identify yourself so primarily with Woman, as woman, but that is what your generation was taught to do, to be proud of ones womaness or feminine nature. And where has it got millions of women? --In shrink's offices or otherwise mentally confused, while a small lucky few made it big, not because of their womaness but luck and legs alone. And those lucky few, they sit on their pedestals announcing to the 99% unfortunate fools remaining that they TOO can achieve success if only they would be proud of their femininity and mistrust men.
So now we have a nation of misfits lining up to get into morning tv shows desperate to get a man, to get their faces seen by their mythical soulmates, "must be somebody out there that will want me!"
And patsies like Greg tell each one how beautiful they are though they know in their frieghtened hearts that the uglyness inside shows on the outside too and cant be well hidden.

I feel horrible about what has happened to the modern woman, to my sisters and our mothers, and any one with a conscience cries inside when they think of what they see within them, and the men who care enough to dedicate their lives to help restore them are not believed and effectively thrown aside.
Believed instead, and quite popular are basically predators who tell woman whatever they think they want to hear, then use them as objects and for mothering comfort. The best of them may be doctors who listen and administer drugs but still would not dare speak the truth.
No it is not right to lie to you, to take from you or to discount you for no reason. You will not find that happening from the genuine philosophers here.
If you truely want respect here then stop trying to impress and prepare yourself to be teachable, because theres no fooling the teachers and they will only use you to make their own points for the benefit of real Truth seekers.
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:Now that we have that out of the way, was there anything else you wanted to say to me?
keenobserver,

Since your response to that question had nothing to do with the point of teaching and relative truths, I take that as confirmation that you were just trying to get me to dance for you when you said:
keenobserver wrote:Madam, the phrase in question is not what you may think, not really some clue meant to stimulate the mind into greater understanding.
Rather it is....well, maybe I shouldnt say, for then your ego may be tempted to cover its unnecessary shame by pretending you knew already, perhaps I should ask you to finish the sentence yourself, after which I will inform.

If you get it right, congradulations, Im impressed.
If you dont, then you might want to think twice before questioning the teachings of a stream of masters.
Since I disappointed you by not dancing for you "like a good girl" you decided to take some snips at me. I allowed you your point, stated that it was out of the way and left you a wide opening to make your point. You then promoted yourself from just speaking for the board to speaking for "real men" as well as the men here. You then follow that up with:
keenobserver wrote:If you truely want respect here then stop trying to impress and prepare yourself to be teachable, because theres no fooling the teachers and they will only use you to make their own points for the benefit of real Truth seekers.
I have been hearing variations on that my whole life - that I couldn't possibly have a thought of my own and that I should just listen to the men. That's counter-productive nonsense. Moreover, I am not here to get respect here. I am here because of the Truth. It appears to me that you are here for the ego-boost that the QRS philosophy gives to men just for being men. That is just as bad as feminism.

Are you done slinging mud now so we can get back on topic?
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Iolaus
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Post by Iolaus »

I also know that because I am female, and many men consider all females to be idiots, whenever I say anything intelligent I set myself up as a target for abuse because I do not fit into their paradigm. They will use whatever tactics they can to break me, but I stand up for the truth anyway. As a result, I am already as broken as I can be.
Why do you bother? Why do you stick around? You could learn from books or other forums. What is it you're after?
Truth is a pathless land.
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Iolus,

Are these actual questions, or an implied suggestion?
Iolaus
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Post by Iolaus »

Are these actual questions, or an implied suggestion?
Why play games? Sure those are straightforward questions, and I guess there is the implied suggestion, too, that perhaps you are allowing yourself to get bruised needlessly.

You gotta be fucked up to stick around here long. Pretty much everyone here is bizarre. I'm no exception. But some of us are more functional than others...
Truth is a pathless land.
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Iolaus wrote:Why play games?
I'd already answered above that I am here for the Truth, so I wasn't sure that you were asking me to repeat myself and state what seemed obvious to me.
Iolaus wrote: Why do you bother?
Because I am devoted to Truth.
Iolaus wrote:Why do you stick around?
Because I am devoted to Truth. There are others here who are also devoted to Truth, or at least claim to be, but even though the admins and some of the members have some wisdom, none are 100% wise. I have some wisdom in some areas where they are lacking, and they and others may still have some wisdom in areas where I may still be lacking - although it is taking time to fish out the missing pieces (if you don't know what's missing, you can't look for it directly). And I still run across some novel things to think about from here.
Iolaus wrote:You could learn from books or other forums.
I do, in addition to here.
Iolaus wrote:What is it you're after?
As much wisdom for as many people as possible.
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clyde
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Post by clyde »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:As a result, I am already as broken as I can be.
No, Elizabeth, you are not yet "broken as [you] can be."
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

clyde wrote:
Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:As a result, I am already as broken as I can be.
No, Elizabeth, you are not yet "broken as [you] can be."
Clyde,

Is that a threat? :p

Since you quoted that twice, I guess I should clarify what I meant. Keenobserver was trying to break me with insults and insinuations. I have already been through a lifetime of that (and more) and although I am broken because of it, keenobserver's jabs were not going to break me further, so he might as well give it up.

I am wondering what you meant by "yet" though.
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clyde
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Post by clyde »

Elizabeth;

First, I should communicate that no threat was implied, which I believe you recognize by your use of the emoticon.

Next, I should communicate that I took the term “broken” in a metaphysical (and/or poetic) sense to mean . . . the act of letting go of everything (that precedes awakening).

Finally, to answer your question, it is my belief (and only a loosely held belief) that all human beings experience that ‘breaking’, even if only at the final moments of one’s life.

clyde
Iolaus
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Post by Iolaus »

Elizabeth,

But why do you accord this site so much respect as to its truth delivering ability, when you also see through the mistakes in perception, such as misogyny, and when it pushes your buttons?

You might be hoping for acknowledgement from them, and I doubt you will get it. There are a couple of women who do, but you're not like them, and if you become like them, I'll have to come over and deprogram you.
Truth is a pathless land.
keenobserver
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Post by keenobserver »

Elizabeth Isabelle wrote:
keenobserver wrote:If you truely want respect here then stop trying to impress and prepare yourself to be teachable, because theres no fooling the teachers and they will only use you to make their own points for the benefit of real Truth seekers.
I have been hearing variations on that my whole life - that I couldn't possibly have a thought of my own and that I should just listen to the men.
.
I was talking about Philosophy, and becoming enlightened, which is the point of this forum.
Of course you may be very knowledgeable of other subjects sufficient to teach others yourself, but that kind of wisdom is not the wisdom we are all about here. That, apart from philosophy is not even truely wisdom, though the world misuses the words wisdom and wise since therein true wisdom is almost extinct.
Your interest is in little truth, not Truth. Little truth is all about relative knowledge, of which you may be an expert and able to show off here. But we dont care what you know about worldly truths. And its clear you dont care what we know about unchanging Truths. To these you are legally blind along with every other female who has come here who identifies firmly with her womanness and wont abandon it.
The ultimate goal of the Truth seeker is neither womanness nor manness, so stop calling me a man because its not my goal.
Someday people may be genderless, and thats where Im headed already.
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

Iolaus wrote: But why do you accord this site so much respect as to its truth delivering ability, when you also see through the mistakes in perception, such as misogyny, and when it pushes your buttons?
These guys are dedicated, and at least David and Dan believe thy are standing up for wisdom and Truth for all. I still don't quite know what to make of Kevin - there are some things I respect about him, and some things I do not. I do believe that Kevin believes he is acting as an agent of Truth, but he reminds me of the fallen angel Lucifer from the Christian stories. He still has the beauty and grace of an angel, unlike the later stories that depicted him with horns and a devil's tail, but through deception, he is not delivering God's message. In fact he covertly asks for our soul in exchange for wisdom (soul here meaning 4. the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments.). Long ago, Kevin saw that David wanted wisdom more than anything else, and convinced him that the price for wisdom was his soul. David paid with his own soul, and continued on as Kevin's unwitting minion, helping to feed the devil with more souls in exchange for wisdom. Of course the wisdom is quality material; it would have to be for people to be willing to pay their souls for it - but it is not the highest quality material. That can only come from God, and God's wisdom includes the soul.

9 months ago, I came here to learn more about philosophy, but once I saw the ugly attitudes on the board, I felt it was my mission to bring peace here. I admit, I was not strong enough and ended up setting aside my soul for what I intended to be a week. I did not recognize the devil's minions for what they were, and my soul was gone. I am now wresting my soul back from the very devil and minions who took it, and hoping to shine the light of Truth on the darkness that is still here. It is my hope that no more souls be paid for incomplete wisdom.
Iolaus wrote:You might be hoping for acknowledgement from them, and I doubt you will get it.
Nope - never going to happen.
Iolaus wrote: There are a couple of women who do, but you're not like them, and if you become like them, I'll have to come over and deprogram you.
*grins*
.
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David Quinn
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Post by David Quinn »

Elizabeth,
DQ: Another example of a relative truth is, "All things are created by the mind." While this is false from the ultimate perspective, it nevertheless has the capacity to help people break free of their attachment to materialism and objective existence.

E: I still have an issue with this type of thinking, so I will get into it again with you. Perhaps I have learned to articulate my thoughts well enough that we can get somewhere with it this time.

I believe it is far better to speak the direct truth right from the beginning.
Most people don't have the capacity to hear and understand direct truth. It would be meaningless to them. It would be like trying to teach the truth to a herd of cows. They will just stare at you blankly.

Kevin once explained it to me using the variant from historical philosophy “first there is a teapot, then there is no teapot, then there is a teapot.” To my mind, this is an unnecessarily roundabout way of getting to the goal. A more direct route would be that first you see a teapot, then you understand that it isn’t just a teapot. That way, you always have the teapot which was always there in the sense that you first saw it, but you just add Reality to it.
Elizabeth, you don't yet understand the Truth, nor the steps to get there. You are pretending to be far more advanced in your thinking than you really are.

The very first step that a person has to take towards Truth is to break the spell of materialism and objective existence, and he can only do that by perceiving that all things are mentally-created and lack inherent existence - that is, by perceiving that the tea-pot isn't really a tea-pot. If he doesn't go through this stage, then he will still be inflicted by the gross delusion of materialism and any attempt to reach Reality on his part will be ineffectual.

Substituting one delusion for another can help people see things in more than one way, but it is unnecessarily violent to the mind and can turn away many – if not most especially in America – potentially great thinkers who know darned well from the beginning that there is a teapot there.
Again, you are not understanding this stage. At no point during this stage is the appearance of the tea-pot ever denied. It is the nature of the tea-pot's existence which is called into question, not its appearance.

My method would open doors for the normal adult mind because normal adults can learn that there is more to the teapot than meets the eye – but if you try to feed them the ultimate falseness that there is no teapot, they are likely to call you a madman spouting BS and walk away. You have then lost the opportunity to expand that mind into wisdom.
I think you've misunderstood what I meant by "ultimately false". The truth that all things are mentally-created is only false from the deeper perspective that there is ultimately no mind or things, only God. But it is true to the degree that a person falsely believes that things physically and objectively exist.

It is similar to the concept is cause and effect. Cause and effect is real to the degree that a person believes that things exist as discrete entities. It only becomes irrelevant when it is realized that nothing has a beginning or an end, that there are really no "things" as such. In other words, the concept of cause and effect is a kind of conceptual glue which joins together what the mind had artificially sundered. Once the gluing is complete, you don't need the concept of cause and effect anymore. It has done its job and you can throw it away.

Similarly, the concept that all things are mentally-created remains true to the degree that a person believes that things physically and objectively exist. But once he understands that nothing inherently exists and that Nature is formless, the concept of all things being mentally-created is no longer needed. He can throw it away.

Kevin is right in that there is a countdown of sorts going on, and there isn’t time to waste. We do not have time to just catch the young and wait for them to grow and filter wisdom into society. We have to reach everyone at every stage of development.
You can't rush mental and philosophical development. There are no short-cuts to it. And as I say, the very first stage that everyone must go through is breaking the spell of materialism and objective existence.

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Iolaus
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Post by Iolaus »

Eliz,
These guys are dedicated, and at least David and Dan believe they are standing up for wisdom and Truth for all.
Yes, they are, yes they do, gosh they are nothing if not sincere. Just because they believe they are standing up for truth does not mean they are all that good at it. Lots of people believe that, like Southern Baptists for instance.

I still don't quite know what to make of Kevin - there are some things I respect about him, and some things I do not. I do believe that Kevin believes he is acting as an agent of Truth, but he reminds me of the fallen angel Lucifer from the Christian stories. He still has the beauty and grace of an angel, unlike the later stories that depicted him with horns and a devil's tail, but through deception, he is not delivering God's message. In fact he covertly asks for our soul in exchange for wisdom (soul here meaning 4. the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments.). Long ago, Kevin saw that David wanted wisdom more than anything else, and convinced him that the price for wisdom was his soul. David paid with his own soul, and continued on as Kevin's unwitting minion, helping to feed the devil with more souls in exchange for wisdom. Of course the wisdom is quality material; it would have to be for people to be willing to pay their souls for it - but it is not the highest quality material. That can only come from God, and God's wisdom includes the soul.
Wow! Now that was interesting! And maybe, just maybe on the mark...
9 months ago, I came here to learn more about philosophy, but once I saw the ugly attitudes on the board, I felt it was my mission to bring peace here.
Hah! That ain't the game, baby.
I did not recognize the devil's minions for what they were, and my soul was gone. I am now wresting my soul back from the very devil and minions who took it,
You may need to visit a witch or a shaman or a sorcerer.
and hoping to shine the light of Truth on the darkness that is still here.
Yes, that is what I'm doing here. I'm an angel bringing light and hope to these grovelers in hell.

Hell is a funny thing. I have figured out quite a bit about it. The people who are there don't know it, and the forces of evil and negativity have many, many tricks to keep them from seeing their situation. Of course the more you are in hell, the more materialistic your views are, and so a primary trick Christianity uses is to make people think that the whole God-heaven-hell racket is run just like prisons and gaited golf communities here on earth. But you can't hold a soul down in prison, the chains have to be mental and thus the inmates remain voluntarily. Another major trick is to make people think it's all about the future, but let me tell you, like the Creedence Clearwater song says, "someday never comes." Hell and heaven are here and now, always now, and escape from hell is always now, but if you think you might go to hell in some future, well, just go back to sleep, dear!
I mean, it's awesome! Tell the inmates that they may have to go to hell in the future but only if they fail to to get a signed contract for membership in the golf club, and they don't make a jailbreak! They get all wrapped up in the contract,and who has one and who doesn't.
It is my hope that no more souls be paid for incomplete wisdom.
And where to get the complete wisdom?
Truth is a pathless land.
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David Quinn
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Post by David Quinn »

Elizabeth wrote:
I still don't quite know what to make of Kevin - there are some things I respect about him, and some things I do not. I do believe that Kevin believes he is acting as an agent of Truth, but he reminds me of the fallen angel Lucifer from the Christian stories. He still has the beauty and grace of an angel, unlike the later stories that depicted him with horns and a devil's tail, but through deception, he is not delivering God's message. In fact he covertly asks for our soul in exchange for wisdom (soul here meaning 4. the emotional part of human nature; the seat of the feelings or sentiments.). Long ago, Kevin saw that David wanted wisdom more than anything else, and convinced him that the price for wisdom was his soul. David paid with his own soul, and continued on as Kevin's unwitting minion, helping to feed the devil with more souls in exchange for wisdom.
I was always wondering about those two little lumps on Kevin's head ......

Of course the wisdom is quality material; it would have to be for people to be willing to pay their souls for it - but it is not the highest quality material. That can only come from God, and God's wisdom includes the soul.
That is certainly true enough. No amount of wise teachings, no matter how good they are, can be a substitute for the wisdom that comes directly from the Source. A good teaching is a teaching that points the mind to that Source.

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Jamesh
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Post by Jamesh »

Elizabeth wrote
Of course the wisdom is quality material; it would have to be for people to be willing to pay their souls for it - but it is not the highest quality material. That can only come from God, and God's wisdom includes the soul.
I presume you mean God as in Nature. Nature has no directive wisdom, it has no overall wisdom. That we evolved emotions by the actions of nature does not mean that such emotions are automatically wise, they are certainly not. Nature and the emotions it has caused to evolved in us, cause many people great harm, and it inflicts upon everyone the greatest harm of all – death.
That can only come from God
Perhaps you were indirectly indicating that wisdom comes only from experiencing nature, which is true, however such experiences must at some stage include experiences that result in one tempering or controlling their emotions.

Imagine a person who when growing up always succumbed to emotional pulls without rational thought – such a person, if they survived to adulthood, would have no wisdom whatsoever. Wisdom stems from control of emotions; think about the wisest persons you have seen or heard of and you will be perceiving someone who gave the appearance of emotional-lessness in difficult times.

I agree with you however, that complete detachment from emotions is not wise. Emotions evolved to make beings seek out knowledge (even simple knowledge like where food supplies are likely) and to teach and reinforce wisdom. They are the base from which wisdom can grow. If you look at a lot of the most respected philosophers of the past, they tended to be "sensitive" people, namely people for whom the universe has more emotional effect upon, and they were caused to develop wisdom as a countermeasure to the suffering caused by being so sensitive.
Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle »

David Quinn wrote:Elizabeth, you don't yet understand the Truth, nor the steps to get there. You are pretending to be far more advanced in your thinking than you really are.
I do not see it that way. I am certainly not pretending anything. If you think I am deluded about my thinking, then address that - but I guarantee you that to my knowledge, I am not pretending.
David Quinn wrote:The very first step that a person has to take towards Truth is to break the spell of materialism and objective existence, and he can only do that by perceiving that all things are mentally-created and lack inherent existence - that is, by perceiving that the tea-pot isn't really a tea-pot. If he doesn't go through this stage, then he will still be inflicted by the gross delusion of materialism and any attempt to reach Reality on his part will be ineffectual.

(...)

At no point during this stage is the appearance of the tea-pot ever denied. It is the nature of the tea-pot's existence which is called into question, not its appearance.
I did misunderstand about the appearance of the teapot never being denied - but I think others misunderstand that as well, and that is where the accusations of nihilism may come from.

Perhaps though you as well misunderstood what I meant by "it isn't just a teapot." Being "just a teapot" would indicate inherent existence and denial of the composition which is mostly space between the particles which is the same sort of space that is outside the "teapot" making it an unending thing, only delineated as one thing as a construct of convenience that is natural for the mind to perceive.
David Quinn wrote:I think you've misunderstood what I meant by "ultimately false". The truth that all things are mentally-created is only false from the deeper perspective that there is ultimately no mind or things, only God. But it is true to the degree that a person falsely believes that things physically and objectively exist.
To my understanding, all that is, is God. Each appearance as well as the generators of those appearances are all parts of God. If you and I were looking at something on the ground in the distance and the indications were that we were looking at the same thing, but you thought it was a rock and I thought it was a coconut, the rock you saw would be an appearance of God, the coconut I saw would be an appearance of God, and whatever we were looking at would also be a part of God. As we approach the object, more details are seen, and we are able to agree on whether it was a rock or a coconut, or a turtle.

What the thing was before either of us could see it clearly would be its objective existence - even though it is composed of molecules and mostly space which is the same space outside it and inside us because we are all God. Ultimately, it is just God - not a rock, or a coconut, or a turtle - but at the level of reality where there are objects, there is objective existence. The only thing that ultimately exists is God, and there is no objective existence on the ultimate level (because there are no objects there).

David Quinn wrote:It is similar to the concept is cause and effect. Cause and effect is real to the degree that a person believes that things exist as discrete entities. It only becomes irrelevant when it is realized that nothing has a beginning or an end, that there are really no "things" as such. In other words, the concept of cause and effect is a kind of conceptual glue which joins together what the mind had artificially sundered. Once the gluing is complete, you don't need the concept of cause and effect anymore. It has done its job and you can throw it away.
I don't know what you mean by throwing a concept away. To me, wisdom involves being able to see all of the levels. Cause and effect will always be true on the objective level, and the objective level is a part of God. Why would you throw away a part of God? You state that you don't need it anymore, but it looks like you're saying you don't need that part of Wisdom. I don't see how it is even possible to throw away a part of the Totality.
David Quinn wrote:You can't rush mental and philosophical development. There are no short-cuts to it. And as I say, the very first stage that everyone must go through is breaking the spell of materialism and objective existence.
You can't rush it, but you can take the direct route. I merely proposed a more efficient way of breaking the spell.
James wrote:I presume you mean God as in Nature. Nature has no directive wisdom, it has no overall wisdom. That we evolved emotions by the actions of nature does not mean that such emotions are automatically wise, they are certainly not. Nature and the emotions it has caused to evolved in us, cause many people great harm
Yes, by God I meant Nature or the Totality - but I kept the Christian terminology to make the analogy clear. Wisdom is understanding Nature well enough to work with Her. Emotions are part of the Totality, so by removing them, we are removing ourselves from the Totality - which obviously would be an artificial division, as well as placing an imaginary barrier between ourselves and total wisdom. You are right that emotions are not automatically wise, but water is not automatically good (tsunami, flash flood...). Emotions and water are just things. Proper use of emotion can be motivational to accomplishing a logical goal (getting excited about completing a project can give one energy to get it done). Improper use of emotion is what causes many people harm.
James wrote:Wisdom stems from control of emotions
Yes, just like being able to turn on a spigot to get a bucket of water and turning it off when you are done is good, but not being able to turn it off and the water washing the dirt out from under your house is bad. I think that we agree that rationality must reign supreme over emotions, but cutting off emotions is as unwise as cutting off the water supply to your house because water could cause a flood. It is neither the water nor the emotions that are the causative factors that must be eliminated, but control over these things that must be gained.
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clyde
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Post by clyde »

Elizabeth;

Since "To [your] understanding, all that is, is God," how are you going to control the Totality? Doesn't that sound delusional?

clyde
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