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dblaney
Human Being
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Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
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Dualism/Non-dualism
#4559684 - 08/20/05 03:17 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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I'm a non-dualist myself. In this plane of existence, on the surface there seems to be a certain level of polarity....differentiations between self/others; mind/body; male/female; good/evil; etc.
However, once you can look past the surface, and are able to flip the poles around to see the way in which they are one, you can see the interrelatedness of EVERYTHING.
So what about you...are you a dualist or a non-dualist and why?
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
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Posts: 95,368
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: dblaney]
#4559689 - 08/20/05 03:18 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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By your definition, I'm both.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: dblaney]
#4559702 - 08/20/05 03:22 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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Non-dualist I believe, as I don't believe in dualism or oneness.
Dualism is inherently flawed, since there are no opposites; everything is part of the same fundamental make-up. Black and white are not opposites, as they are both colors or pigments. The opposite of black would be the absence of the black pigment or color, which would be nothingness; so the actual opposite of everything is nothingness, which doesn't exist, making dualism useless.
Nor is there any evidence everything is one; on the contrary, I can feel myself as a separate organism from everything, and even on the quantum scale there are many separate wave-particles. Everything is dissociated, just floating free and interacting but not unified.
-------------------- So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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mecreateme
YoUisMEEMsiUoY
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: Ravus]
#4559771 - 08/20/05 03:50 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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Bell's Non Local Theorem? Can you not be a part of it all, and also seperated? Are you not stitched in to your environment wherever you go? Are you not a part of the fabric of reality and yet also a separare(as you think) thing too?
Are they waves or particles, why not both and neither?
I would be a dualist. At this point I always see the poles. I also, while maintaining that I am seperate or so it seems from other minds, can sense a unity that exists just by the fact that I share a background/stage set with people around me that is as much me as me is me.
-------------------- No ONE wants to know the ultimate TRUTH, as soon as YOU find IT out, YOU want to forget IT. You are everything's way of feeling itself. Happy Schwag, everygodly!
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dblaney
Human Being
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Posts: 7,894
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: mecreateme]
#4559816 - 08/20/05 04:11 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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I agree with you that while it seems objectively that we have different minds, we all have a unity. However, there is no such thing as objectivity, as everything that is perceived by human eyes is subjective. We may agree for the most part on the similarities of our individual subjective experiences, yet they are still subjective and as such it would be foolish to believe them 100%.
But anyway, ALL of us have what the Buddhists call Atman: the eternal silent witness. That is-ness in each of that experiences our senses and thinks our thoughts.
The ETERNAL silent witness...it continues on (or at least so the Buddhists posit) even after our physical body perishes. My is-ness is just part of the total is-ness (called Brahman), just like your is-ness is also a part.
And in that sense we are all one.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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mecreateme
YoUisMEEMsiUoY
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Posts: 2,727
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: dblaney]
#4559835 - 08/20/05 04:18 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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Now we are just wallowing in lables.
-------------------- No ONE wants to know the ultimate TRUTH, as soon as YOU find IT out, YOU want to forget IT. You are everything's way of feeling itself. Happy Schwag, everygodly!
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dblaney
Human Being
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Posts: 7,894
Loc: Here & Now
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: mecreateme]
#4559837 - 08/20/05 04:18 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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Deviate
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: mecreateme]
#4559841 - 08/20/05 04:20 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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"Nor is there any evidence everything is one; on the contrary, I can feel myself as a separate organism from everything, and even on the quantum scale there are many separate wave-particles. Everything is dissociated, just floating free and interacting but not unified. "
how do you know the sense of seperateness doesn't only exist in the mind? if you've experienced ego loss or deep sleep you should know that the distinctions between this or that only exist so long as the ego exists. in other words the second and third place only appear after the first place and when the first place dissapears the second and third place dissapear along with it. that is the sole reason for the claim of the oneness of reality. the simple fact that there no thing to even raise the question in the states in which the ego is not. the subject and object both resolve into the subject. the very fact objects can interact is the evidence they are part of the same reality. this should also illustrate the subjectiveness of 'evidence'. what one person perceives as undeniable proof another may perceive as no evidence.
Edited by Deviate (08/20/05 04:39 PM)
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other
Stranger
Registered: 07/09/05
Posts: 32
Loc: northern europe
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: Deviate]
#4559856 - 08/20/05 04:26 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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I think am multiplionisticisticalistic. Sorry about my bad English.
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frostynostrils
Human
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: other]
#4559937 - 08/20/05 04:57 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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I dislike the Christian view of Dualism, myself. They seem to be dualists when it's convenient. Ever notice how sometimes Satan is almost as powerful as God? But to revere him as such would be blasphemy. Anyway, I think of good and evil as a continuum, with poles (at least theoretically) but most of us lying somewhere in the middle. Like so many things in nature (the pH scale, light waves, etc.) it is rare to have such clear definitions. I am actually just starting a screenplay based on this.
-------------------- "Smear the paint till the colors run, It's nearly time, I'm nearly done Flaming, orange, open sky!" - Cherry Poppin' Daddies
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Ravus
Not an EggshellWalker
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: Deviate]
#4560069 - 08/20/05 05:43 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
how do you know the sense of seperateness doesn't only exist in the mind?
I don't, but since I only exist in the mind also this seems irrelevant eh? The experience is absolute to itself.
Quote:
if you've experienced ego loss or deep sleep you should know that the distinctions between this or that only exist so long as the ego exists. in other words the second and third place only appear after the first place and when the first place dissapears the second and third place dissapear along with it. that is the sole reason for the claim of the oneness of reality.
In that case unity only exists in nothingness; annihilate the entire universe and the entire universe is one, with no difference between one area and any other.
But if something exists and it is perceived, like we have it right now, then oneness breaks down into many different pieces, and we become like children moving through plastic balls on a playground; we're all contained in the same area, but are made of separate pieces nonetheless.
Quote:
the simple fact that there no thing to even raise the question in the states in which the ego is not. the subject and object both resolve into the subject. the very fact objects can interact is the evidence they are part of the same reality.
No one denies we're part of reality; this is true no matter how you view reality. Even in solipsism, or in dreams, or virtual reality, you are still part of reality. But there is difference between being part of reality and being one with reality; in solipsism, for example, you are all that exists, so in truth the experience is all that exists. When you have the experience that you can move away from the bed without the bed being affected or responding, you know that the bed may exist in the same experience as you, but you are nonetheless not unified with it.
Quote:
this should also illustrate the subjectiveness of 'evidence'. what one person perceives as undeniable proof another may perceive as no evidence.
Possibly, but that means either way, whether you think we're one or separate, it only exists subjectively and therefore has no truth. And without truth, it all seems to break down into separate constituents to me, or perhaps breaks down into a great void of nothingness.
-------------------- So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.
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dblaney
Human Being
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Posts: 7,894
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: Ravus]
#4560169 - 08/20/05 06:11 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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A great void of nothingness, and/or perhaps a great mass of everythingness.
A good analogy for ourselves (at least for how I currently view that topic) would be perhaps a pitcher of water (the water being analagous to our souls). Then some of that water is poured into separate cups. Inside the cups (analogous to our bodys) there is still the very same water, just in a different vessel.
Perhaps in this plane of space and time and matter there does exist separate matter (but this matter would be inanimate so essentially irrelevant), or perhaps there is no separate matter and it is part of or the product of an extraordinarily elaborate consciousness or dream of ours (uh oh I think I'm bordering on solipsism )
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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Deviate
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: Ravus]
#4560187 - 08/20/05 06:14 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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"I don't, but since I only exist in the mind also this seems irrelevant eh? The experience is absolute to itself."
not necessarily irrelavent because its possible to experience altered states of mind in which the seperateness apears to be an illusion. also, how do you know you only exist in the mind? do you not exist in deep sleep while the mind in sunk in oblivion? perhaps your mind is simply oblivous to what lies beyond it.
"In that case unity only exists in nothingness; annihilate the entire universe and the entire universe is one, with no difference between one area and any other.
But if something exists and it is perceived, like we have it right now, then oneness breaks down into many different pieces, and we become like children moving through plastic balls on a playground; we're all contained in the same area, but are made of separate pieces nonetheless."
yes, one-manyness seems to be the nature of the universe. unified diversity.
"No one denies we're part of reality; this is true no matter how you view reality. Even in solipsism, or in dreams, or virtual reality, you are still part of reality. But there is difference between being part of reality and being one with reality; in solipsism, for example, you are all that exists, so in truth the experience is all that exists. When you have the experience that you can move away from the bed without the bed being affected or responding, you know that the bed may exist in the same experience as you, but you are nonetheless not unified with it."
so seperateness is relative to the body.
"Possibly, but that means either way, whether you think we're one or separate, it only exists subjectively and therefore has no truth. And without truth, it all seems to break down into separate constituents to me, or perhaps breaks down into a great void of nothingness. "
the great void is the reason for the belief in oneness. once everything has broken down there ceases to be any way to differentiate one thing from another, hence onness.
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Nignugnot
Funkphiler
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: Deviate]
#4560306 - 08/20/05 06:50 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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What I understand is that when "humans" get involved there are things call perceptions and with these perceptions come opposities. Are we part of this reality? Well if we were to cross the membrane which "starts" the multiverse and inwine ourselves into another reality physics would not be suited to us... pace
-------------------- I'm an asymtope, neva gonna catch me!
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ELECTRIC
I'm a Puppet
Registered: 07/21/05
Posts: 177
Loc: Bonded with string...
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: dblaney]
#4561707 - 08/21/05 02:12 AM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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"So what about you..."
I like Dualism/Non-dualism.
-------------------- Nos confido phasmatis occultus in vicis postulo nostrum tutela donatus futurus.
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The_Visionaire
Torch
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: ELECTRIC]
#4566088 - 08/22/05 09:41 AM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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When arguing things like free will/determinism, process/structure, life/death, subject/object, mind/matter etc., the only consistent resolution is that what we talk about is BEYOND these consciousness projections.
And at the same time, there is NOTHING beyond "the one" that is "the two" (that is "the one").
The master Pythagoras came up with the following koan:
"One, two..."
And thats it. We have now arrived at the end of the highway, this is how far you can ride by car. Beside the mountain path there stands a signpost: "Abandon all thinking, ye who enters here.."
I would recommend meditating upon this koan. Try not to be too attached to the number system as we know it. Perhaps first draw some sketches and try to define whats going on.
For example, one can draw a point at the paper. Seems like monism if you ask me... but wait, there is something beyond the point, a "me" watching it. Then I project and draw the "me" as well, watching the point at the paper. Now it is dualistic tableau, but all contained within the god-mind of the one observer.
This is a neverending alternating cycle of fractal proportions...
-------------------- There are no differences between men and gods, one blends softly causal into the other. -Frank Herbert, Dune.
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Seuss
Error: divide byzero
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: dblaney]
#4566481 - 08/22/05 01:00 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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I have experienced non-dualism, I think... however, only the voice of dualism is able to claim non-dualism... one of those knowing the path rather than being the path type of things...
-------------------- Just another spore in the wind.
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BlueCoyote
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: Seuss]
#4566886 - 08/22/05 03:25 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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[to originator] convinced dualist, from birth... knowing the oneness...
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dblaney
Human Being
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Re: Dualism/Non-dualism [Re: Seuss]
#4566924 - 08/22/05 03:33 PM (18 years, 7 months ago) |
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Very intriguing point...
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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