Yea, think I hear what you're saying. Literally, you can't go east and west at the same time.
However skillful/unskillful I was originally, my intent was to somehow relate the two as complimentary. A skillful cook can mix flavors that you wouldnt think possible. Its Yin and Yang ya know?
I was a little over eager to incorporate a lot of things that have been brewing in my head lately, and now I can see I could have said a lot of this more skillfully.
I started out thinking that duality implies trinity, or like you said, comprises trinity, and that is really what my main focus originally was.
But while I see this natural, conceptual graduation to trinity in western context, it seems to get lost in relation to The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which as far as I know is unrelated to the building blocks of Cartesian duality. Christianity was NOT founded upon a dialectic approach to reality, like the concept I describe.
Now if the theory I describe of trinity, graduates from duality in terms of consciousness, what exactly am I saying?
To formulate this conceptual idea of trinity I noticed that:
Descartes Says there is Subject and Object.
There is Cartesian duality, subject and object, and necessarily consciousness that recognizes this. To recognize duality, an additional dimension is needed to see the space between subject and object.
This is why I mentioned the "If a tree falls" question. Though this might seem like mental masturbation, it is important to realize that in terms of existence, there is no object without a subject. ---> Subject and Object together comprise reality, what might be described as a more realistic objectivity.
Without getting too much into it, I think that this is the chief fault of the western approach, and generally why society in my opinion is in a shit hole. Science and rationality is mistaken as absolute, rather than associative. Nowadays we worship pharmacueticals, capitalism, and democracy, having our own modern crusades.
Not only society, but of course the government is thought to be secular, when it certainly is not. Right off the bat, in the declaration of independence:
Quote: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...
This is the same damn thing I am talking about. Absolutism. Instead of a social contract between individual and government, which acknowledges the frailty of objective claims, we have the American bible proclaiming innate rights.
Subject and object, left simply at that, is clearly ineffective.
I say that duality implies trinity, because it is absolutely necessary to realize that both subject and "object" comprise existence. Or in other words, they comprise a more realistic version of objectivity.
This is confusing because what I am saying, concerning sentient existence, (which takes into account the constrains of experience), is that duality is necessarily stacked upon itself. Actually if you catch my drift, there is conceivably an infinite number of dualities stacked, creating a much recognizable layering affect. Ever notice how becoming conscious seems to come in plateaus? I think that essentially, this is what is happening.
From here things get more sketchy as I try to relate this to the eastern approach. The following was originally meant as an afterthought, though I do think there might be something to it, and maybe I just cannot articulate it yet.
The reason I mentioned eastern thought in general, is its generally experience based approach is exactly what's missing in cartesian duality. Instead of having level upon level of dualities, one might conceive of this as simply subject, object, and consciousness.
I can see that imposing a third concept upon Eastern duality, which already emphasizes experience is completely unnecessary. For instance, it does seem unnecessary to explicitly unify yin and yang, as this is implicit for good reasons. I think I agree with you that this third leg translates best to nothingness.
So it seems that as usual, I am merely critiquing the western approach through an eastern lens. But I do not believe this is simply Iconoclastic; eastern spirituality might be highly subjective (psychological) but it is arguably rational as well...
The problem is, while it seems necessary to account for the layering of duality, there is seemingly no end to this. Cartesian duality begs for an end, an absolute. So another way of conceiving this, which resolves the layering of duality from the beginning yet still accounts for it, is the Theravada "duality". A finite interpretation, (perhaps in terms of quality, not quality?)
But while it to me seems clear that the Theravada "duality" of insight vs. concentration, is exactly what is missing in Cartesian duality (which I previously also described in unity as consciousness, or sentient objectivity), it is also clear that this does not so cleanly fit.
Alan Watts, Ken Wilber, Tanaka Kataro, and others; these guys have really opened up my mind. If you listen to their lectures, they always admit that they are not describing Eastern thought "correctly" (perhaps like the cartesian disclaimer on "objectivity"), nonetheless this has made eastern philosophy all the more decipherable for amateurs like myself. I guess Im trying to do their kind of thing. I really dig the crosshairs of eastern and western philosophy, and while I agree that describing one through the rhetoric of the other is limited, even delusional, the attempt to relate these ways of thought seems to be both effective and distinct.
Btw I meditate as much as I can put up with these days, and intellectualizing actually seems to feed this for me much of the time, if I'm doing it right. But other times you are right, I get lost in thought exactly like this. I do realize that it is important to keep ying and yang distinct, so your intent is well noted.
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