No, there is definitely a man and soul that we can call US that does not belong to others or is not shared.
If I, (Velocity,) get cancer, I have cancer. Not a bit of you, Machinaforce, is affected.
Yes, that’s the stated idea. And my reply is, if the guy stating that idea looks at a coin that’s made of gold atoms, and then at a key that’s made of iron atoms, and back at the gold coin and back at the iron key, and then uses the key instead of the coin in a lock — getting it right pretty much every time — then he’s still acting exactly like someone who takes them to be separate entities.
He acts like there’s a difference between them. He acts like it matters if he uses one or the other. He acts like neither of them is a handful of sand, which he doesn’t seem to believe is made of gold atoms or iron atoms.
Given the choice between drinking water or poison, I act like a guy who takes them to be separate and independent; I act like it makes a difference if I choose one or the other. And, near as I can tell, so does he, or he’d be dead by now.
The poison-and-water “analogy” can’t fall flat, because it’s not an analogy.
You say: “The idea here is that what we take to be separate and independently existing entities are not so, but rather all made of the same fundamental materials.” I’m saying — not as an analogy, but directly on point — that a guy who disagrees would act like the iron key and the gold coin can be separated from each other and used independently from one another, just like he’ll take the water in one glass to be separate and independent from the poison in the other.
I’m then saying a guy who claims they’re not separate — well, also acts like he can tell the two apart, and acts like it makes a difference whether he chooses one or the other, and will ostentatiously separate them when they’re side-by-side so he can use one instead of the other: exactly as if they’re separable, and as if they can be used independently. He’ll drink the water while pushing away the poison, or put the key in the lock without touching the coin, and that’s not an analogy.
If you want to back away from the general claim and just make a specific one about people, then these would be analogies. But if we’re discussing the claim as it’s been stated? As far as I can tell, it’s already saying something about the iron key and the gold coin and the handful of sand. As far as I can tell, it’s saying something about a glass of water and a glass of poison. And so on.
The claim here is being made about people, which is the one being made here: Is the self an illusion? Do I exist? | Jeff Foster
Which has more to do with the nature of a self and such, that is why the gold and key analogy fall flat.
Now hold on a sec. You’ve mentioned a number of very silly general claims: the bit with the gold and the key isn’t an analogy, but is directly on point as a reply to those very silly general claims. If you want to drop those very silly general claims, and say you don’t take them seriously, and instead just discuss this whole thing about the nature of a self — well, that’s fine, but I’d like for it to be explicit.
You said ‘such appearances are just the illusion of separation but that fundamentally everything is made of the same basic elements.’ And ‘nothing exists independently of anything else because it depends on other things that preceded or surround it to exist’ and ‘I mean scientifically it seems like it makes sense since everything is made of the same atoms at the base level, everything contains the atoms present at the start of the universe. Then heavier elements formed and we have what we see today. So how is everything not the universe then?’
If you’re still curious about those, then I refer you to the gold coin and the iron key: not as analogies, but because they directly bear on those claims — which, again, are (a) very silly and (b) general. If you’re no longer curious about those very silly general claims, but only want to discuss The Nature Of A Self?
…yeah, okay: that link you provided says “Years ago, I was very certain that there was no self, and tried very hard to convince people that there was no self. I couldn’t see back then that this constant need to convince others, this sense that I was right and needed to wake others up, WAS the very self I was denying!” So, two things: one, if he’s right, then he used to believe there was no self — but then he realized there WAS one. (He puts it all in capitals, just like that.) And, two: if he’s wrong about lots of stuff, then I — wouldn’t be a bit surprised?
What he’s saying is that the self he thought he was denying was the very one trying to say that there isn’t one and trying to convince people.
Just like here: http://anandbhatt.skyrock.com/3289760168-The-Most-Misunderstood-Buddhist-Story-The-Tiger-and-the-Strawberry.html
Where he says that the story is meant to show the illusion of duality and that what we see as options is through our own delusions and that from the objective non human view there are no options.
So what?
If he’s right, then he (a) used to be certain that there was no self, but (b) later realized that he was wrong and there is a self — “the very self I was denying!”
Now, he may be wrong; maybe he’s lying or mistaken or whatever. But if he’s right, then there is a self, though he used to insist otherwise: a fact that doesn’t seem to bother me, and doesn’t much seem to interest me either. Still, like I was saying, it’s also possible that he’s just wrong about plenty of stuff; that wouldn’t surprise me, and it likewise wouldn’t strike me as terribly interesting.
Why would either possibility interest you? Again, maybe he’s right about there being a self, even though he used to deny it; but maybe he’s wrong about plenty of stuff, because — and stay with me, here — maybe he’s the kind of guy who just, y’know, gets plenty of stuff wrong. Either way: so what?
Because the nature of selfhood is the main issue that I have here. If there is no “soul” or essence to a person or thing then “who” can it be said that I am talking to.
I’m trying my best to relegate all this stuff but it’s more like a bunch of notions or intuition in my head, like I can picture it.
I know part of it is psychological in the self being an illusion (doesn’t mean not real), that what we take to be a solid and unified form is really just a collection of parts that appear to be a whole. Or to put it another way a product of brain activity that gives the impression of a unified agent. Susan Blackmoore said that it’s not like saying that humans don’t exist, they do. It’s more like the notion of some little man or agent riding around in the body.
And I guess part of that has to do with if there is no core then there is no “you” just a body. That part of that is this feeling that we are a separate and lonely agent acting in a world and independent of everything else, when in reality we are born of it and shaped by it, connected to it all. In that sense you are the universe.
I’m trying my best here but it’s a lot of stuff that is pretty out of my depth.
“In that sense”, you say.
Do you get that, in another sense, that’s not actually true? That being shaped by something doesn’t necessarily make it that thing? That, ‘in a sense’, one can in fact be connected to stuff without in fact being that stuff? And so on?
Well put another way:
The beginning of this also makes a mention of being the universe:
Uh, yeah; I guess that — ‘in a sense’ — it does.
But the useful part is, it also seems — uh, ‘in a sense’ — to make the opposite point: it cautions you about “a very real thing to look out for. Don’t get mixed up thinking the finger pointing the way to the moon is the moon itself.”
See that? You’re being told — by a Buddhist, even! — not to do that. Oh, sure, you can maybe find a Buddhist who’ll say that In A Sense the finger IS the moon; but the one here is already helpfully noting that, In Another Sense, no, it’s not, don’t get that wrong instead of just getting it right.
You can do this. You can strikingly say that a finger IS the moon; and then you can give a wry chuckle, and then remark “in a sense.” You can then add, “of course, in ANOTHER sense, the finger isn’t actually the moon; don’t think even for a minute that one is ACTUALLY the other, that’s just crazy talk.”
We can land a man on the moon but we can’t land one on Machinaforce’s finger!
But the point being is that there is no sense of separateness that we commonly believe to be so.
Like in here: http://www.zenthinking.net/blog/understanding-the-difference-between-non-attachment-vs-detachment
The giant quote at the top of that link is “Non-attachment is the freedom of things. It is a self-realization of the truth of reality–that you, consciousness, can not be affected by anything. It is only the egoic mind that makes you believe otherwise.”
I’m pretty sure that when they say this they’re not saying that the moon can’t effect you - in fact, the site is very clear that it’s just talking about emotional detachment. (Except only sort of, because they constantly make these dramatic claims and then back down from them because reality disagrees with them. They seem to really be talking about just being loftily above it all.)
But no, they’re not claiming that the moon could crash into you and you could ignore it through force of will. I don’t even think they’re saying that they’re immune to booze, though a plain read of their leading statement would imply such.
You can change the subject later; first, address the subject you’ve been on about for amazingly long in this thread: look at a finger, and look at the moon, and look back at that finger, and look back at the moon; can you tell them apart? Is one of them, near as you can tell, distinguishable from the other?
Possibly you’ll still claim that, In A Sense, they’re connected and not separate; if so, can you — In Another Sense — routinely keep from mixing them up?
Well I’m pretty sure you are not consciousness, just the body (which produces it). Also your consciousness can be affected by things that you aren’t aware of so I don’t know where they got that.
As for the you are the universe, I still think it has to do with being made of the same things as everything else and being connected and affected by other things rather than existing as some atomized and independent self. Though that might just be more of a view point that elicits a certain feeling from believing it.
One can be connected to or affected by a thing without being that thing.
True, but I guess it comes down to the fundamentals. If there is no soul or separate entity that is “you” then you are everything, or in this sense that the universe is like an ocean and you are a wave, that individual consciousness is an illusion and it’s just one. That we have forgotten who we really are and that it is the greatest identity theft ever.
(That last line was from one of the teachers in the link)
Obviously though I have critical doubts about all of that especially universal consciousness.
No. Don’t gloss over it; stop right there, and really let it sink in for a moment, before you move on to something else. You’ve said the reverse, over and over, as if it settled the matter; when, in fact, it does nothing of the sort.
“True,” you say, and that’s good — but it’s also where you should take a good long look at why you’ve been saying the exact opposite. If you can so quickly discard it, then why the heck were you repeatedly bringing it up?
Let’s belabor the obvious for a moment - there is obviously a separate entity that is “me”, and individual consciousness cannot possibly be an illusion.
Have you ever played a role playing game, like dungeons and dragons? Have you ever written a book? What I’m really saying is, have you ever created a character?
You can decide that your character is a separate person from you, and they they don’t know all the things you know. You can decide that the character has a personal perspective on the world that they see from the point of view of their own mind and identity, and describe their actions and reactions as though this is true.
But one thing you can’t do is forget yourself. You can’t actually stop experiencing your perspective, and you can’t actually stop knowing the things you know. Your knowledge, experience, preferences - these things all continue to exist, and they continue to fully describe your existence - and the things that are outside your knowledge, experience, preferences will remain stubbornly outside them aside from what you pull in through the peepholes of your senses. You can imagine what it would be like to experience life as me, but you can’t actually experience life as me, because you can’t expand your mind to include my mind any more than you can reduce your mind to include only your character. Your mind has boundaries, which are all quite real. You are separate and distinct from the not-you.
And everyone’s like that; even the woos. The closest they can get to being out of their minds is to go crazy - which they admittedly seem to try to do constantly.