Rahz said: There are aspects of existence that we must guess about to hold a position on.
There is an alternative called "suspension of judgment" (epoché).
Your current position seems abductive: conditioned process naturalism is your preferred explanation because it accounts for the evidence with fewer assumptions. But that is different from the earlier P8, which appeared to treat the denial of ātman as a deductive consequence of impermanence. Abduction can justify adopting a model provisionally, but it does not by itself disprove alternatives.
I can understand why you chose conditioned process naturalism as the most reasonable working hypothesis. My concern is that this justifies a provisional belief, but you were stating its metaphysical conclusions as established facts. A working model is for utility rather than truth, using a map of the city doesn't mean the city is identical to the map.
"I find awareness as process the best current model" is different from "awareness is nothing beyond conditioned processes." The former expresses reasonable confidence; the latter requires an argument that rules out alternatives such as ātman.
Quote: While I would hesitate to call it fundamental, one can extrapolate from physics a block universe in which everything is contextually real and eternal within it's frame of reference. Other ideas are suggestive of other things. It's not something that's solved for so logic and reason must be applied without test.
In a block universe, every instance of walking may be equally real as an event, but that does not make walking an independently existing entity, nor does it make any particular walker eternal. All conscious events might be equally real in a four dimensional structure without proving that consciousness is merely a process or that an enduring awareness underlies it.
Quote: So what is reasonable? What seems reasonable?
"Reasonableness" depends on your starting axioms. If your axioms are "only the physical is real," then naturalism is reasonable. If your axioms are "experience is primary," then ātman is reasonable. Since the axioms themselves are not proven, the most reasonable position is to suspend judgment on which axiom is correct.
Quote: Individual conscious events are points in a process. Consciousness is a process. It can be said to be unchanging in the same way walking can be said to be unchanging. As a person walks, their perspective changes, but the walking remains the same. Whether the person is 5 or 75 the process of walking is to put one leg in front of another. It is impersonal aside from particular leg issues or absence of legs.
An individuals walking does not last forever. Other animals will continue to walk. Perhaps there will be a point in spacetime when there are no present animals walking, but the potential for walking remains (reasonably). If the present is merely perspective then anything that walks always walks in a particular frame of reference, but that's not something that has been proven, nor is it something that escapes causality or exists outside spacetime, so far as the math would be concerned.
The analogy does not demonstrate that awareness is a process; it presupposes it. If "awareness is a process" means that awareness is nothing beyond changing physical and mental events, then ātman has been ruled out by definition rather than refuted.
I am not claiming that awareness cannot be a process. I am saying that this must be argued for rather than assumed, especially when the disputed position defines ātman as awareness not reducible to changing mental contents and processes.
Quote: My position is to not be imaginative when it comes to the truth of such things. Darkness. Acceptance of darkness and accepting of reason in present realness.
I recall an individual a couple decades ago who started a website called "Dark Zen". It was not a formal branch of Zen but they suggested it was a candidate being a "full system". I found the idea which sprung from those two words to be compelling, but upon reading I discovered "Dark Zen" was descriptive of normal awareness and if you followed his system you could be "bathed in the light of The Buddha".
Not so dark after all, but the gist of the two words stuck. It's the same as the ignorance of Socrates. Reason can be suggestive of various things, and I have shared my viewpoint on it. Am I right? I don't know. I only suggest that I am reasonable.
True Socratic ignorance doesn't say "I don't know, but X is most likely." It says "I don't know, and since I have no evidence for X or Y, I will not pretend that X is more reasonable than Y." Occam’s Razor is a heuristic for choosing the simplest theory; it is not a tool for determining truth.
Quote: The blind man who wants peace is the man who has accepted being blind. That is the/a "light of the Buddha" imo. I don't suggest that it's synonymous with nirvana, but that it's a condition for it if nirvana is real. Akin to Kṣānti through realization. It's reasonably a product of (intended or unintended) cultivation yet also immanent for those who can see it. Cultivation is not strictly necessary except to say there is often struggle prior to realization.
This presents a problem I cannot give an answer to. I don't take a position on whether nirvana is true or false. I also don't crave it in the way a blind man might want to see. Not my problem, but I remain curious. It is Stoic acceptance without emotional color about what it means, which is I suppose what it's for rather than an impression that might be had about it. In this way, it's closer to Stoicism than common perception, but not necessarily accepting of Stoic cosmology. It's more Stoic than Stoic.
The main disagreement at this point is the step from process naturalism to the stronger claim that awareness itself is fundamentally nothing beyond the conditioned process. When you say that awareness "is not fundamentally separate from the physical process producing it," and that it "arises, changes, and ceases when its conditions arise, change, and cease," you are not merely describing observed conscious events. You are making a metaphysical claim about the nature and origin of awareness.
I do appreciate the epistemic modesty when you say "I do not know what is ultimately fundamental", but when you say things like "Awareness is a process.", "awareness arises, changes, and ceases with its conditions", "It is not fundamentally separate from the physical process producing it.", "Awareness is a quality of reality but not its defining feature.", "Awareness is like trees, exploding stars, or other particular things.", "Neither self nor awareness should be treated as an eternal ontological ground." and "no changeless awareness could exist" you are making substantive metaphysical/ontological claims.
As Bacon observed, "What men wish were true they readily believe." That applies not only to religious or metaphysical beliefs, but also to skeptical conclusions that provide psychological comfort by eliminating uncertainty. The fact that a view is comforting, or that it aligns with one’s prior framework, does not establish that it is false, but it is a reason to examine whether the conclusion has been demonstrated or merely preferred.
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