GENIUS FORUMS

No, because one doesn't have to rule out the possibility of absolute truth existing to lack belief in its existence. It's exactly the same deal with atheism - nobody can say for certain that god doesn't exist, because you can't prove the negative. But in the absence of compelling evidence that god exists, the rational thing is to lack belief in it.

I refuse to believe your delusion that Truth is achievable.

He has seen no evidence that it is achievable.

Jason: Reality is right here, right now, everywhere, everything. Isn't it obvious? How could you ever avoid it? Is there anything more that needs to be said or done?

DQ: Plenty.

Jason: So now reality should include plenty more saying and doing. More reality just as it is.

DQ: What you're describing, while important and true, is only one aspect of Truth.

Jason: I'm actually not describing "one aspect ", I'm pointing to all aspects. What I wrote, the writing itself, is one aspect of reality, but what the writing refers to is all aspects.

DQ: What about the aspect of formlessness, for example? How does simply pointing to the fact that Reality is everything help people break free of the illusion of objective existence and realize the formlessness of everything?

"From my perspective, the "I" is nothing more than a conceptual construct, and thus the idea that we really do have an "I" is an illusion. The "I" exists in the same way that the lines of longitude and latitude exist - as a kind of arbitrary demarcation that we project onto reality. The seperation between ourselves and the rest of the world is not really there, and so any pursuit of the "I" will always end in failure. It is like chasing a mirage. "

The problem I describe, which effects your formlessness idea, also relates to this post you made, and probably makes my points clearer:



I also see potential contradiction in the way that you say that the "I" is "nothing more than a conceptual construct". Which thus makes it "an illusion", an "arbitraty demarcartion", something that we "project onto reality" and "chasing a mirage". Yet everything from the infinite, to cause and effect, to every single idea you use is based on conceptual constructs. You appear to want to deny the validity of divisions by using divisions.

I also see potential contradiction in the way that you say that the "I" is "nothing more than a conceptual construct". Which thus makes it "an illusion", an "arbitraty demarcartion", something that we "project onto reality" and "chasing a mirage". Yet everything from the infinite, to cause and effect, to every single idea you use is based on conceptual constructs.

The first line of the Tao Te Ching, literally translated from the Chinese, leaves a lot of room for interpretation due to the many shades of meaning in Chinese characters.

The interpretation I use is not an uncommon one.

Tao is what is pointed to by the word "Tao," not the word itself. Or, as it is usually put, "the Tao that can be told is not the true Tao." Using the term "constant" or "eternal" in place of "true" does not necessarily change this interpretation. It's still all about what can be spoken of (conceptualized) and what can't.

This interpretation is consistent with many other Eastern sources, including Chuang Tzu, the Diamond Sutra, and others.

Actually, I find Victor's accent more difficult to understand when he is speaking slowly.

Interesting. It could be that accents come through more strongly when a speaker consciously stops to enunciate his words.

They almost always use someone who isn't actually from the region, too. Worst example: Sean Connery in "Red October".

Either way I found Victor quite easy to understand 99% of the time. Translating the academie speak was a different matter :)

I also agree with those who think Victor trounced us in the debate. It's simply true, but not because Victor has strong points; I think it's just that neither David nor I have done any real-time verbal "stouching" in more than ten years. We'll get better with that as time goes on.

I'll have to return to my talkback radio calling days and hone my skills again.....

I also agree with those who think Victor trounced us in the debate.

What the obvious difference is between translating with 'constant' or 'eternal' instead of 'true', is that it doesn't imply any 'false' Tao; what is being named or in motion (thought, sense, experience).

I doubt it, perhaps their common translations :) Translations are rarely made by people understanding the original, but are led by concerns to fit it into current common views on things. I know, it sucks, the moment you find out most old beautiful revered texts are pretty worthless and sweet-talking, pandering to what we want to hear which is often the reverse what was intended, to unsettle us.

Right, which is why I don't like your version. For me, there is a "false" Tao, that being the imaginary Tao that exists only as an intellectual concept in our minds. This is the Tao which can be told, and it is not the true (trans-intellectual) Tao.

You can either push symbols around and have your certainty or you can relate it to the truth about the world and say something useful and lose the certainty. But you can’t have both.

- Beyond Empirical Uncertainty -

It's been said many a time - even by me - that empirical matters are always contingent and uncertain, but is this always the case? As useful an idea as it can be in terms of breaking down attachments to false thinking, it is, itself, not entirely true. There is always uncertainty when we draw inferences as to what a certain thing we're experiencing actually is - for example, I may perceive a haze in the distance which I deem to be water, only to find that it is something else, or the girl I see crossing the street, whom I presume to be flesh and blood, may in fact be a hologram of some kind. That element of uncertainty exists in any given situation when we draw an inference as to what any given thing is. However, we tend to extent this notion of empirical uncertainty to all of our empirical models (models of causal relation) but this is not ultimately valid. These models of causation are, in fact, never uncertain. Why? Because like the definitions we create, they too are something we create. How can there be uncertainty in what we have created?

The reason we ascribe uncertainty to our empirical models of causation is because we can always say there could be factors that we are not taking into account in building our model. Whilst this seems reasonable it actually rests on the unstated assumption, a false assumption, that a complete model can exist. But this just isn't so. No complete model of causation with respect to any thing or state can exist. The only sufficient cause of any given thing is Reality itself and Reality is not something that can be modeled. No model can be complete because any such model has to have causes for itself, which are necessarily factors in why a thing or state is what it is (another way of saying that no finite thing can be its own cause or explanation). When we create an empirical theory we always place arbitrary boundaries around it and pretend that the model is whole in itself. But naturally, it isn't; we're just shutting our minds off to related factors because those related factors may not be necessary to the functionality of the model, to its utility in some practical context. Philosophically, however, we can come to understand that no empirical model whatsoever can or should be thought of as a contingent version of a full and complete model of Reality. To refer to any empirical modeling of the world as uncertain is to imply the possibility of a certain and complete model, which is something we can never have. Therefore, applying the term "uncertain" to such things is to commit an error of thought. What would certainty in relation to an empirical model mean? That we had included all possible factors? But that idea is laughable, for not only can we say that we can never know that we have done so, we can, more significantly, say that we can never do so. The reason for that, again, is that no finite thing can exist of itself - it requires that which demarcates it to give it identity and existence (form), and this is a dynamical fact of Reality that is necessarily infinite in scope (and is the reason we may rightly say that existence is infinite).

Since certainty is not a notion that can be meaningfully attributed to such empirical perspectives, neither is uncertainty.

Certainty and uncertainty are no more applicable to empirical models than the terms true and false are applicable to the definitions we create. Like definitions, the empirical models we create are either useful or not; they either have utility for some purpose or other or they do not; if not, we can categorise them as bad models, but they are never true or false, certain or uncertain. When we grant these creations of the mind the quality of uncertainty, we imply the existence of an objective reality, one which we are attempting to accurately model or reflect, but no such objective reality exists. We are merely creatively carving up an infinitely carvable Reality according to the whims of the qualities of our consciousness. That's the real problem: the belief that such an objective reality exists and that we are somehow reflecting it more and more accurately with our theories and models of causal relation. We think we are discovering the world, when all we are really doing is creating it; what we are doing is modeling our own consciousness - projecting it out into the cosmos and deluding ourselves that we are unraveling the mysteries of existence.

How much more utility would our scientific endeavours have if we adopted a more creative rather than interpretive approach? If we started to look forward instead of constantly looking back? If we resolved to build a future for ourselves instead of constantly attempting to invent a history for ourselves? Globally, we spend billions of dollars on cosmology, archeology, the various fields of evolution and so forth and yet we spend a veritable pittance on disease research, sustainable forms of power and resource production, not to mention trivial incidentals like the pursuit of wisdom - all because we are obsessed with the false belief that we can model the world accurately, on the basis of the delusion of an objective reality and that if a model "works" it must reflect that reality faithfully. We vainly attempt to "find" ourselves in Nature all the while oblivious to the irony that our "selves" are actually there in everything we find - creating it!

Both our understanding of ourselves and the utility of science would gain a great boost if we could get our minds around the difference between discovery and invention.

DQ: What about the aspect of formlessness, for example? How does simply pointing to the fact that Reality is everything help people break free of the illusion of objective existence and realize the formlessness of everything?

J: As I said, I am refering to literally all aspects of reality. What you are presenting is again simply another possible aspect of reality. So yes, it is certainly possible for reality to include the viewing of objective existence as an illusion. But that's just another example of "reality just as it is."

I have a feeling you may accuse me of using this technique to evade attempts to introduce other truths, but I see it as the most accurate and fundamental answer I can give.

I could address your question in a more rational/logical/argumentative way, for example I could say: "formlessness is a finite and limited concept/state, and reality is not finite or limited." but I am liable to get us into trouble, because really what I am pointing to is a realization.

I could go back and show you where I may disagree with certain ideas in your "The Wisdom of the Infinite" that lead to your idea of objective existence being an illusion.

I could argue "realize that your concepts and ideas are a part of reality, not a hold on reality." but in the end all we would be doing is exchanging our disagreements and this too would be reality as it is. Just more suchess. Do you see?

Now you hopefully understand where I'm coming from, I will enter into one of these arguments, because it still may offer some value. Firstly, and I think you can probably relate to this, I can and do operate from various philosophical viewpoints or levels, depending on what I am discussing and who I am discussing with. When I'm discussing evolution, for example, I would generally fall back to the empirical/scientific level.

My most fundamental understanding of reality, is what I call "suchness" or "isness", which I talked about above. Beyond that I have varying levels of less refined philosophical viewpoints, and these levels largely reflect the path I took to reach my final realization.

So just before the final realization, I viewed reality as being composed entirely of appearances, so this is the next level up from the most fundamental suchness. Then the next level would probably be something similar to idealism, which basically holds that my mind is the creator of all values and boundaries. Then there might be a relativism/post-modernist type view, then after that an empirical/scientific/materialist type of view.

The level that your idea of formlessness relates to, in my opinion, is the one where the mind is seen as creating all values and boundaries. So if I were operating from that particular viewpoint I would tend to agree.

But, in my journey, as I began to move beyond that viewpoint I found some problems with this idea. One of the the central problems is: in a similar fashion to the fact that there is no way to get a glimpse beyond our own sense perceptions, there is no way to ever observe anything beyond the boundaries our minds create, the former rules out the possibility that a world existing beyond our direct sense perceptions can be perceived or proven, the latter rules out the possibility of knowing an undivided unity that exists beyond our minds, and also precludes knowing alternative ways that existence could be divided up other than exactly the way we observe that it is divided up.

So in my view you are essentially arguing a variant of the idea that there is a external independent reality beyond the senses and perception, with the associated problems that brings.

The problem I describe, which effects your formlessness idea, also relates to this post you made, and probably makes my points clearer:

David Quinn wrote:
"From my perspective, the "I" is nothing more than a conceptual construct, and thus the idea that we really do have an "I" is an illusion. The "I" exists in the same way that the lines of longitude and latitude exist - as a kind of arbitrary demarcation that we project onto reality. The seperation between ourselves and the rest of the world is not really there, and so any pursuit of the "I" will always end in failure. It is like chasing a mirage. "

I also see potential contradiction in the way that you say that the "I" is "nothing more than a conceptual construct". Which thus makes it "an illusion", an "arbitraty demarcartion", something that we "project onto reality" and "chasing a mirage". Yet everything from the infinite, to cause and effect, to every single idea you use is based on conceptual constructs. You appear to want to deny the validity of divisions by using divisions.

Yes, that's the trick for gaining wisdom - using conceptual divisions to undermine all conceptual divisions. But it does have to be all of them, not just a select few.