Radical Understanding IV

“To say that our structures are discovering objects out there that can only be interpreted one way would be the extreme modernist approach. To say that there are no objects only interpretations would be the extreme postmodern approach. Integral theory integrates the two.”

Yes, but the question is - how do they integrate them? I can't just claim that I've now solved the problem of global warming, I must also show people how.

“They are essential questions for integral theory, perhaps an integral interpretation of enlightenment.”

I would like to disagree with you here. I think it's a most important question. The reason is this: if an object indeed has a relative existence that is characterized as existing through the power of its own self-being, then that is just as much a potential cause of suffering as if an object has an ultimate existence by way of its own self-being, or character.

Sometimes I notice in my egoic thinking there is a voice that says: “Ah well, all these problems don't ultimately exist, but I still have to worry, stress and deal with them now here in the relative world!” So in these cases, dukkha has not been transcended at all. If what I say here is true, then it follows that everybody must become a monk or live in a cave in order to be happy. Why? Because relative phenomena still has an inherent power to influence your state of mind. If this was so, the only way to freedom would be a complete removal from the world of the relative, i.e. from the world of the human mind. Only in the silence and solitude of nature could you find peace, not in the bustling city! This clearly isn't a view fit for a modern society.

David, let's use an example - a table. Say this baroque table - currently owned by a distant relative of yours - have been in your family for centuries, and you find it very precious because it is old and expensive. The distant relative promised you a couple of years ago that you would inherit it when she passed away, and you were very happy to hear about this. (Not the passing away. :P) Ok, so this distant relative died a couple of weeks ago, and now all of the sudden you find out that she willed it to another dude in your family! You become very upset and you feel dukkha spreading rapidly throughout your body and mind.

Now if you just for arguments sake live yourself into this scenario - how does this table relatively exist, for you? You mention an “objective component”. Where is this objective component of the table?

Because, it doesn't matter for you if the table doesn't ultimately exist, you still can't enjoy its relative existence in your home or you still can't sell it for relative money, you think. This issue of relative existence need to be dealt with to liberate yourself from this dukkha, which springs from experiencing the relative existence of this family table!

Re: Radical Understanding IV

What I meant by not being essential was that there have been those in traditions that didn't focus on such things to “attain” moksha. Ramana Maharshi, of course, advised finding the source of the “I,” and then all objects will disappear.

However, you make a compelling case here! Maybe it is essential, but we still could consider the idea that if we destroy the root of the “I,” the objects will then vanish. Every thought begins with “I,” yes? Even a thought that appears to begin with “he” or “she” or “it” must also begin with “I,” yes? Because we have to discern “I” before we can discern “he,” “she,” or “it.”

So maybe, just maybe—and then we will get on to your compelling story and scenario—it is our first believing in the “I” that causes the mischief. Ramana Maharshi said that it was the “I am the body” thought that caused the “mischief.” If instead of lamenting over our loss of the table—which seems like a terrible loss! :)—we inquired into the “I” maybe both table and dukka would disappear.

(By the way, I read something interesting in Murti's book about the different types of dukkha, that it is regarded in a three-fold way: dukkha duhkhata—the actual pain; tapa-duhkhata—longing, desire; and samskara duhkata—the root causes, klesas, or passions; e.g. attachment, aversion etc.)

At any rate, are you a believer in synchronicity? Because you know what? I have been contemplating this as well as well the last day or so, and the object I have been contemplating has always been a table! Or tables. Synchronicity, or is it the psychic?  :)

Well, issues of inheritance and objects can cause all sorts of duhkka, for sure.

Where is the objective component of the table? I think if we would ask most people the answer would be obvious, that the objective component is right before our eyes, there built of wood and metal and such. But it only exists through the mind of a human being—yet, there is a difference between the table, and an orange, and an old piece of cheese the passed-away relative left in her refrigerator. People might view the table differently, not see exactly the same thing; yet, if you asked everyone involved with the issue to point out the object at hand probably each one but the very small or perhaps the very old would be able to point out the correct object. They pretty much will agree that it has a certain location, a certain particularity about it.

Ah, she willed to another dude. That could make it especially vexing: she willed to another dude. That can bring up all the deepest issues from the psyche, for a male at any rate.

Yes, the idea that it doesn't ultimately exist doesn't offer much solace, only the most superficial sort, and it may even be dissociative to think along those lines and not experience the emotions involved.

But can we explain away the relative existence of passed-away relative, dude, and table? Is there some explanation that will remedy the dukkha?

Or is this grief over the table and her choosing someone else to give it to merely one more form of the “emptiness wound” that Almaas speaks about and only remedied by nonduality?

Re: Radical Understanding IV

“Maybe it is essential, but we still could consider the idea that if we destroy the root of the “I,” the objects will then vanish.”

This is actually not the case. I know non-duality teachers who have completely seen through the person, but still believe that the body, mind, and things - like trees - still exist by way of their own character. Hinayana generally deals with the former, and Mahayana with the latter, which is person+things.

“So maybe, just maybe—and then we will get on to your compelling story and scenario—it is our first believing in the “I” that causes the mischief.”

With this I agree. The I is one of the greatest afflictions. (But not the root affliction, which is the belief in inherent existence.) Therefore you shouldn't start contemplating on the emptiness of phenomena, but on the emptiness of persons. Because if you've seen through the solidity of the person, other emptinessess will be easy to realize.

Seeing the emptiness of the person triggers an awesome liberation, but the roots has not been thoroughly cut, and dukkha could therefore possibly return since objects seem to exist in their own right. “Well, I may not exist in or as this body, but it is still quite nice, and I wish…” or “I may not be the thinker of these horrible thoughts, but I wish they would not be here!” or “What a nice car, if only…”
 
“I have been contemplating this as well as well the last day or so, and the object I have been contemplating has always been a table! Or tables. Synchronicity, or is it the psychic?”

David, time to integrate Orange! :P A table is often the standard example when discussing emptiness, or when we just generally make examples. Don't believe me? Check this out at 6:30.

Almaas: “The most powerful desire we have, in the deepest part of our hearts, is the longing to cease as a separate individual; to be united, to see that there is really only one because it is our ultimate nature.”
 
Yes, and how could this possibly be attained if things out there exist by way of their own self-being (ultimately or relatively)? It is exactly this kind of thinking which causes suffering and separation because things-in-themselves have the capacity over our reifying minds to generate desire, aversion, pride, envy, confusion, etc.

“Or is the “I” that needs to be uprooted in the end?”

First the I. Then we work with remaining habitual thoughts created by past karma (biological/social/cultural) which most certainly will still have a momentum, even though the I (person) has turned into smoke and vanished. So…

“I think if we would ask most people the answer would be obvious, that the objective component is right before our eyes, there built of wood and metal and such.”

This is the key right here! Here you have pinned down your very own notion of inherent existence. This is extremely valuable, the most important step. So you know the table exists right there! There it is, can't you see it?

Now that you have this fresh in mind ask yourself, do the table exist in the parts (legs, marble surface, adornments) or as something apart from the table and its parts?

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Tom, there is something I want to say about states and structures, regarding what you said about wanting to tilt the horizontal access so it is vertical.

In a few ways the states as they are in the model already involve structure:

1) The way third tier is envisioned now involves an integration of state and structure. Those deeper states “come with the territory.” (There is some question about whether they include jnana or not, turiya and turiyatita. The way they are envisioned now may just include nirmanakaya, nonduality in the gross realm.)

2) The states can only be peak experienced or “plateau experienced” (as a trained state) from a structure, peak experienced all the way down virtually and plateau experienced starting at Amber. In other words, you can't peak experience nonduality unless you already have a structure, Red, Amber, etc. (This doesn't necessarily mean, however, that in the deepest meditations one doesn't go beyond these vertical structures. That claim hasn't been proven empirically one way or the other, only phenomenologically.)

3) The plateau experience from Amber doesn't involve so much an integration with the vertical structure, but it does involve a kind of concentrative structure and discrimination regarding ultimate identity and such.


That the states can be peak experienced going all the way down, more or less, make the states substantially different from the vertical structures, however. You can peak experience nonduality from Red, but you cannot peak experience Turquoise from Red. So there is something very different about the states.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Dawid: This is actually not the case. I know non-duality teachers who have completely seen through the person, but still believe that the body, mind, and things - like trees - still exist by way of their own character.


First of all, have they really seen through the person? I don't believe a person really has seen through the “I” until Turiyatita, and people who have are a small percentage of those claiming nondual enlightenment, probably less than 10% at the very most, maybe less than 1%.

But what do you mean exactly by objects existing “by their own character” or “self-being”? It seems to me that how objects exist or don't exist isn't necessarily something that would be understood through traditional enlightenment but through some other injunction, enactivism or something along those lines, a higher vertical structure.

In other words, I think it's possible for someone to be completely enlightened in the traditional sense, turiyatita, and believe objects are some kind of metaphysical entities existing as some sort of Gods or space aliens even, and then another person with turiyatita to interpret objects in a more sophisticated manner. That is what the Wilber-Combs Lattice illustrates: that we can be enlightened in the traditional sense but see the world very differently, from different structures, Amber, Orange, Green, Teal, Turquoise, etc.



Dawid: With this I agree. The I is one of the greatest afflictions. (But not the root affliction, which is the belief in inherent existence.) Therefore you shouldn't start contemplating on the emptiness of phenomena, but on the emptiness of persons. Because if you've seen through the solidity of the person, other emptinessess will be easy to realize.


This is what I said, isn't it? That if you see through the I the rest will come more easily.

We might need to add the idea of one's “native perspective.” This is an idea of some Integral Institute member. They recently sent me a DVD with a piece about it, but I haven't seen it yet. But what the gist of it seems to be (without having seen it through) is a kind of typology based on the four quadrants.

In other words, there are UL types who interpret things primarily according to their inner experience; UR types who interpret things primarily in terms of action, what to do about it; LL types who interpret things primarily in terms of the “we”; and LR types who interpret things primarily in terms of systems (objects perhaps).

So if one's native perspective is the UL, seeing through the “I” as in self-inquiry might be the primary thing, but if one's native perspective is the LR it might be objects.



Is: Seeing the emptiness of the person triggers an awesome liberation, but the roots has not been thoroughly cut, and dukkha could therefore possibly return since objects seem to exist in their own right.


It might be that one can see through the “I,” Turiyatita, at any structure, such as Amber, but one only sees through objects at Turiyatita + a higher structure, such as integral, to phrase it one more way. The personal motivation would be one more thing that needs to be seen through, and that wouldn't necessarily be seen through by seeing through the “I” inherent existence or object inherent existence.



Dawid: David, time to integrate Orange!


It could be I just heard them talking about tables before, but synchronicity and psychic are real relative phenomena that do occur in post-Orange worldspaces, though interpreted in different ways than they usually are.



Dawid: First the I. Then we work with remaining habitual thoughts created by past karma (biological/social/cultural) which most certainly will still have a momentum, even though the I (person) has turned into smoke and vanished.


Couldn't we say, though, that if there are still all these conditioned thoughts, subpersonalities and the like, that the “I” hasn't been thoroughly seen through yet? There are object thoughts that you are referring to—they all begin with an “I,” right?



Dawid: Now that you have this fresh in mind ask yourself, do the table exist in the parts (legs, marble surface, adornments) or as something apart from the table and its parts?


I think, if I am simply about to move a table or something, I kind of think of it as a whole thing that needs to be moved. But if step back and contemplate it I might regard it as a combination of parts. I think that is a valuable exercise. The more one contemplates the parts, down to atoms, gokumis, the less the table appears to exist.

Maybe, with regard to what I said earlier about native perspective we actually need “integral inquiry.” The “I” would be one (traditional self-inquiry) , the “we” another, “its” another, leaving it at the Big Three for a moment. But I think seeing through the action self in the UR, motivation, would also be important.

That would ultimately have to include the “evolutionary” process as well as whether things inherently exist or not, however, how to work with the dynamic aspect.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

“But what do you mean exactly by objects existing “by their own character” or “self-being”?”

It simply means that the object exists without being established by an imputing consciousness. This is how we walk around the world, we believe that we are “in here” and the world is “out there”, and that this is just “the way things are”. And this holds true at all stages (up to 3-tier, because at that level emptiness have been integrated).

Madhyamika P tells us, ”Well, look again.”
 
“…but synchronicity and psychic are real relative phenomena that do occur in post-Orange worldspaces, though interpreted in different ways than they usually are.”

If you want to believe that, go ahead. (But I think it will cause dukkha for you. Just sayin'.)

“There are object thoughts that you are referring to—they all begin with an “I,” right?”

Some non-duality teachers say that they still become angry, irritated, depressed, etc. But that these feelings simply float by in awareness and that they don't “stick”. They say they are the “empty, aware, open space” that just watches it all. So there's really no suffering.

When non-duality teachers say this, it is in my opinion proof that they have been liberated from the I, the person, (which, to speak conventionally, is one of the most profound realizations a human being can have) but not from phenomena. Phenomena like the body, mind, things, abstract concepts are still there as potential causes of unpeace.

“I think, if I am simply about to move a table or something, I kind of think of it as a whole thing that needs to be moved. But if step back and contemplate it I might regard it as a combination of parts.”

You've seen the QED video Holden posted? In the beginning, it says something like - “Reality as we know it, is an illusion.” The reason the video says this is because of our notions of inherent existence. So don't just take this analysis as something “less developed” people do, and that we here in our AQAL evolutionary splendour simply looks down on it all, seeing the big picture. This is simply the same old excuse, but in a new disguise, that the ego has been pulling for millenia to keep us from waking up.

Now, if you want and are ready, let's do this analysis; let's free ourselves from the tangles of suffering, hate, depression, unsatisfaction, separation and slavery. I think it will be helpful for both of us. (Or if you'd rather do this in PM's, just send one.)

So where is the table you so clearly have in mind right now? Is it the table as a whole, united thing (legs, surface, adornments combined) or is it a mere combination or collection of these parts? You must choose only one, because of course the table can't be two different things at the same time.

If you feel this is starting to become ridiculous, like - “Why are we doing this? The table is right there, I can see it! This analysis is just a pointless waste of time” this is a good thing. It means you are in strong contact with the notion of inherent existence, which will make the analysis fruitful. (If one does not know what inherent existence means, the analysis will be pointless. Like a general dispatching an army without knowing where the enemy is.) Or if you feel “<yawn, yawn> I know where this is going, I know this already” ask youself: is there dukkha in my life? Would I like dukkha to continue, or would I like to be free from it? Is there a feeling of contraction, of being centered, of being locked in, in my life? Would I like this non-liberation to continue, or would I like to be free, like all the sages I admire?

Re: Radical Understanding IV

David: “But what do you mean exactly by objects existing “by their own character” or “self-being”?”

Dawid: It simply means that the object exists without being established by an imputing consciousness. This is how we walk around the world, we believe that we are “in here” and the world is “out there”, and that this is just “the way things are”. And this holds true at all stages (up to 3-tier, because at that level emptiness have been integrated).


Okay, I think we might divide this up into maybe four different areas.

Up to Green—thinks objects exist without a mind to perceive them (if they did, it is not something we could know, Wilber writes).

Green—doesn't think that objects exist free of the interpreting mind but can fall into an extreme interpreting-mind only view.

Integral—won't think that the mind creates everything itself because that is like magic thinking, like a child who covers his eyes with his hands and thinks he's made everyone disappear. If it is contemplating Romeo and Juliet, for example, it will see certain universal, objective aspects to it, perceivable beginning at Amber perhaps, but that interpretations of it will differ.

For example above a certain structure, it will be a book; the title will be Romeo and Juliet; the author will be William Shakespeare. Below that structure it is not anything goes either: a dog will be unlikely to mistake it for something to eat or chase, though it might see it as something good to tear into a million pieces. A small child at Magenta would also not be likely to mistake it for something to eat, though she might also want to tear it to pieces.

So the object isn't strictly interpretative—it will tend to orbit around the object we at L/5 or higher will recognize as a book titled Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.

Beginning at Red, what they call in object/relations theory “object constancy,” the book will be reified to the extent that the perceiver is reifying oneself. At Red, that's pretty reified! Throw the book at Jack the Mus and you will find out!

Even at second tier or L/5 when we might begin realizing on a conceptual level that we and the book don't ultimately exist we will still feel as though we do. If Jack the Mus comes after us we will run as though the End is near!

However, in third tier, where structures include deeper state realization as they are now conceived, we will begin feeling ourselves not to exist as manifest-realm objects that will one day die and thus will begin viewing other objects like that as well.

That's mostly due to the deeper-state aspect of those structures. Those deeper states can be peak experienced at Orange, for example, where they might well still believe that objects can exist without a perceiving mind and with only one interpretation. And that peak experience, with state training, can be extended into an “enlightenment” at an Orange altitude. So they might think at one and the same time that objects can exist without a perceiving consciousness and with only one interpretation and not only think but see that they don't ultimately exist.

They will only really begin to feel that they and the objects don't ultimately exist in third tier, by which time they will also see that objects can be interpreted in many different ways and that it doesn't even quite make perfect sense to speak of a particular object literally because the transcendental signified is not absolute or not absolutely nonvariable (post L/5 we will agree generally about certain objective aspects of Romeo and Juliet, but each person will still envision something at least slightly different).



Dawid: Some non-duality teachers say that they still become angry, irritated, depressed, etc. But that these feelings simply float by in awareness and that they don't “stick”. They say they are the “empty, aware, open space” that just watches it all. So there's really no suffering.

When non-duality teachers say this, it is in my opinion proof that they have been liberated from the I, the person, (which, to speak conventionally, is one of the most profound realizations a human being can have) but not from phenomena. Phenomena like the body, mind, things, abstract concepts are still there as potential causes of unpeace.



I think that's one way we could put it, yes. Another way to put it is that if they are this empty, aware space with objects floating about that don't stick, they are only at the causal or witness level, Turiya at best, and haven't pushed through or been pushed through to nonduality. We could say that they have been liberated from the “I” but not phenomena, and we could also say they haven't been liberated from the causal witness, the “last stand of the ego” in the words of Katigiri Roshi.



Dawid: So where is the table you so clearly have in mind right now?


Okay, the table is right in front of me now. In fact, my hands are resting on it, sort of, through the intermediaries of a keyboard and wrist-support pad, occasionally a mouse-wrist-support pad.



Dawid: Is it the table as a whole, united thing (legs, surface, adornments combined) or is it a mere combination or collection of these parts?


I generally regard it as a whole. With a little effort I see it as parts put together and with a little more effort parts comprised of very tiny things like atoms and gokumis, altogether arising in a certain AQAL matrix, representing technologies forged by hard work over the millennia through various structures.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

“Okay, the table is right in front of me now.”

Great.
 
“I generally regard it as a whole. With a little effort I see it as parts put together and with a little more effort parts comprised of very tiny things like atoms and gokumis, altogether arising in a certain AQAL matrix, representing technologies forged by hard work over the millennia through various structures.”

Ok, so you gave two answers here. Which one is it? The question is, what is the table you have in front of you? If it is there, such as you say, we must be able to find it. So if we just simply divide it into two parts - legs (four of them) and surface (one of this) - what is the table's relation to these parts? Is the table the parts as a whole, which is to say, is the table one with the five parts? Or is it the mere collection of the parts, which is to say, is the table one with perticular combination comprised of the parts?

Re: Radical Understanding IV

I'm not sure what you mean by “is the table one with the five parts” and also how that is different than a “mere collection of the parts.”

I would say that while I often just regard it as the surface, it is a collection of parts, which put together in a certain way add up to something more than each of the parts alone or all the parts together as a heap.

But guess what I just realized? It is a Swedish table!!!!!!!! I bought the table at IKEA!!!!!!! Another synchronicity!!!!!!

Okay, so I just learned that IKEA is now based in Holland officially, but it is still controlled by Swedes, and it is a Swedish name!

Re: Radical Understanding IV

The founder of IKEA, Ingvar Kamprad, is one of the coolest dudes in Sweden. Almost every day he drives to one of the IKEAs to buy hotdogs for lunch. (The guy has 22 billion dollars, but still insists on buying a hot dog - from his own company - for 1 dollar.) Also, he was a member of a pro-nazi movement during the war.

“it is a collection of parts, which put together in a certain way add up to something more than each of the parts alone or all the parts together as a heap.”
 
Ok, so in your mind, what is the essential difference between the table put together a certain way, and the table simply as a heap with all the parts lying unassembled on the ground? Because logically, if, as you say, the table is simply the collection of the parts, and if that's all, then it won't matter in what way the parts are put together (or not put together) - there will logically still be a table in the unorganized heap on the ground.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

What is a part?  Isn't what you call a part equivalent to what you call a table?

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Tom, we're in a process here that I think has got some momentum. So please let us finish this and you can see if we by then will have answered your question. (I think we will have.) I just think it's important to ride on this resonance that has been built up, and not just go off on a different tangent all of the sudden, because then any progress will be lost.

(Or you could start a new thread!)

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Dawid: What is the essential difference between the table put together a certain way, and the table simply as a heap with all the parts lying unassembled on the ground?


The parts put together in a particular way have value and use—I can place things on it and perform operations on it that require a flat surface above floor level. All the parts lying as a heap have no value or use unless they are put together in a particular way (or unless they are used for some other purpose or perhaps considered a work of art).



Dawid: If, as you say, the table is simply the collection of the parts, and if that's all.


I didn't mean to give the impression that I considered it only a collection of parts; I meant the sentence to be take as a whole: the parts put together in a particular way.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Ok.

So, when exactly does the table start existing as a table which is put together in a certain way, as opposed to simply lying on the ground as an unorganized heap? What exactly is the objective difference between that “complete state” in which the table exists, and the “uncomplete state” in which the table is nonexistent?

Re: Radical Understanding IV

The table begins existing as a table that is put together in a certain way when the assembly process has been completed. The exact moment, is when the final nail or screw necessary for it to hold together has been hammered or screwed in far enough so that it will not cut someone if they happen to brush past it.

The objective difference between the complete state in which the table exists and the incomplete state, when the table is not yet assembled, is that the parts are put together in a particular way rather than lying in a heap or assembled only partially or incompletely.

Now, like all perspectives this is at least somewhat subjective: We could debate over whether it requires eight screws or sixteen screws or whether they really need to be screwed in far enough so that no one will cut him- or herself on it before it can be considered a table. But the objective difference for the builder of the table would be certain enough: He or she would be able to say when the table is completely assembled. And the user of the table, if different than the builder, would also have to agree that it had been assembled enough to be considered or functional as a table for the time period that he or she needs a table, though that needn't be a definite time frame.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

“The table begins existing as a table that is put together in a certain way when the assembly process has been completed. The exact moment, is when the final nail or screw necessary for it to hold together has been hammered or screwed in far enough so that it will not cut someone if they happen to brush past it.

The objective difference between the complete state in which the table exists and the incomplete state, when the table is not yet assembled, is that the parts are put together in a particular way rather than lying in a heap or assembled only partially or incompletely.”
 
Now things are starting to become interesting. You say that the objective difference between the two states is that the table is now put together in a certain way, rather than lying in an unorganized heap on the ground. But how could there logically be an objective difference? Because, if you now think carefully  about the table before and after assemblement, each part of the table has not individually changed. Each leg, and the surface, looks exactly the same now as they did in the heap on the ground. If we look at all of the parts individually before and after assemblement, there is no objective difference; it is an incontrovertible fact that the individual parts do not get a different shape when you put them together.

So, if there is an objective table now in the assembled state of the parts, there logically must be an objective table also in the unassembled heap of table parts as well, because there is no objective difference between the parts during the two states, right? They all look exactly the same before and after assemblement.

Imagine a carpenter coming into your house. He sets up all the four legs so that they can stand on the ground on their own, now ready to support the surface. He then comes in carrying the surface-part in his hands, and walks towards the four legs. (Note: no objective table is currently existing, according to you.) He then gently places the surface part on top of the four legs. Now all of the sudden an objective table has come into existence, since it fullfills all the necessary table-functions, we can eat on it, for example. Then, 5 seconds after he put the surface on the four legs, he removes it again. And the objective table - POOF! - ceases to exist. Then 5 seconds later he puts the surface back on, and POOF! - the objective table springs into existence again. And then he puts the surface on and off a few times. (When he removes the surface he's holding it in a vertical angle, so we can not use it to eat on.

So it then follows that the table goes in and out of existence every five seconds as the carpenter puts on and removes the surface from the four legs: Existence for 5 seconds, nonexistence for 5 seconds, existence for 5 seconds, nonexistence for 5 seconds, existence for 5 seconds, nonexistence for 5 seconds, existence for 5 seconds, nonexistence for 5 seconds. And so on.

(An interesting thing to ponder here is whether the table that you believe comes into existence again and again in this example is the same table (such as you feel when you wake up every morning), or a new table every time? Anyway…)

If the table really existed objectively, shouldn't it be more stable than this? If we think of a tree as existing out there objectively, surely it doesn't go in and out of existence like this. We think that it has one beginning, and one end, and that's it. Nonexistence before the one beginning, existence between the one beginning and the one end, and nonexistence again after the one end.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Dawid: each part of the table has not individually changed ...

That of course begs my question, 'what is a part,' but beyond that question, how can you possibly know no change occurs?  Quantum physics suggests the “parts” actually do change, and perhaps irreversibly, relative to every circumstance in which they find themselves.  That change is called superposition and evolution of the Schroedinger wave function, the mathematical working of which is the basis for quantum physics predictions.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

If you'll have some patience, Tom, I'm sure all your concerns will be adressed.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Dawid: Now things are starting to become interesting. You say that the objective difference between the two states is that the table is now put together in a certain way, rather than lying in an unorganized heap on the ground. But how could there logically be an objective difference? Because, if you now think carefully  about the table before and after assemblement, each part of the table has not individually changed. Each leg, and the surface, looks exactly the same now as they did in the heap on the ground. If we look at all of the parts individually before and after assemblement, there is no objective difference; it is an incontrovertible fact that the individual parts do not get a different shape when you put them together.


It's true that the individual parts don't change, as far as we can generally see, anyway, for all intents and purposes. There will tend to be at least one subtle change: some displaced wood or metal where the screws went in, but some tables probably don't even require a change like that to be put together.

But, whether the parts themselves have changed or not isn't really the question. Their relationship to each other has changed and the end product is very different than the heap. The heap is good for nothing, generally, and a table can be used for eating, studying, making art, playing games, etc. So there has been a significant change even if the parts themselves have not changed.



Dawid: So, if there is an objective table now in the assembled state of the parts, there logically must be an objective table also in the unassembled heap of table parts as well, because there is no objective difference between the parts during the two states, right?


There is the potential for a table in a heap of table parts but not a table. In a table, we have the potential for a heap! Or a bigger or different table or some other piece of furniture.



Dawid: So it then follows that the table goes in and out of existence every five seconds as the carpenter puts on and removes the surface from the four legs: Existence for 5 seconds, nonexistence for 5 seconds, existence for 5 seconds, nonexistence for 5 seconds, existence for 5 seconds, nonexistence for 5 seconds, existence for 5 seconds, nonexistence for 5 seconds. And so on.

(An interesting thing to ponder here is whether the table that you believe comes into existence again and again in this example is the same table (such as you feel when you wake up every morning), or a new table every time? Anyway…)


I think each time the carpenter puts it together it is a new table. However, not very different from the old one.  :) In fact, likely not different at all to appearances, though the carpenter may notice that the screws are a little looser.


Dawid: If the table really existed objectively, shouldn't it be more stable than this? If we think of a tree as existing out there objectively, surely it doesn't go in and out of existence like this. We think that it has one beginning, and one end, and that's it. Nonexistence before the one beginning, existence between the one beginning and the one end, and nonexistence again after the one end.


If we were trying to maintain that the table existed eternally, then certainly it should be more stable than that. But we are only saying (or, the side of the discussion I am taking is only saying) that the table has some relative, temporary existence when it is assembled properly and all the parts are sound. Whether it exists for five minutes or five years or comes in and out of existence as people take it apart and put it back together doesn't matter. When it is put together it has some temporal, objective existence, though of course it is an enactment: to say that “it has some temporal, objective existence” is a perspective with a subjective aspect, a kosmic address.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

David: There is the potential for a table in a heap of table parts ...

Beautiful point, David.  Water carries in its being the potential to be ice.  So far as I can perceive, no one has ever observed the actuality, the beingness, of that potentiality, but it must exist, I think.  Thus the matter of which you are composed carries in its being the potential to be the arrangement we call David.  “David” presumably changes with the change in David-parts—which change constantly, and very probably change the macro “David” though perhaps imperceptibly.  Extending this a little, all matter carries in its being the potential to be David and anything or everything else in this so-called material world.

These speculations are further to the question 'what is a part' which I think deserves a little attention.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

“…but some tables probably don't even require a change like that to be put together.”

Exactly. Let's think of a neat IKEA table with pegs in the legs that simply require that we place the surface-part on the legs in order to assemble it.

“But, whether the parts themselves have changed or not isn't really the question. Their relationship to each other has changed and the end product is very different than the heap. The heap is good for nothing, generally, and a table can be used for eating, studying, making art, playing games, etc. So there has been a significant change even if the parts themselves have not changed.”
 
And where is this objective change? Let's assume that we with a nice HD-camera record the carpenter as he places the surface-part onto the four leg-parts.

Now we go and watch the clip on your computer. We edit it so we can watch it in slow motion. Yeah, we make it very, very slow. We can say that we slow it down a thousand times so that every second the surface-part moves closer to the leg-parts by a fraction of a millimeter. So, it takes like 4 hours in total to watch the carpenter put the surface-part on the leg-parts.

Would you now be able to tell me the exact moment when the table objectively and officially come into existence? When exactly will you pause the recording, jump up from the chair with arms raised to announce:

“-That was it! Just now the table started to objectively exist. It didn't exist the previous second, but now it does.”

And when you have, we then invite 10 of your friends to do the same experiment. Do you think they will also choose that exact same moment within the 4 hour span of the movie clip as you? If no, why not? If the table objectively come into existence at a certain point in time - as it must, since it has not existed eternally - shouldn't everybody then be able to see that exact moment of the objective table's birth as you?

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Tom: Beautiful point, David… . .Extending this a little, all matter carries in its being the potential to be David and anything or everything else in this so-called material world. … These speculations are further to the question 'what is a part' which I think deserves a little attention.


Thank you, Tom.  :) I think what you say about parts is very interesting. I think we will probably go there eventually. It seems to me that the question “What is a part?” would lead to some interesting things. For now I am just going to play off Dawid's questions, and we will probably get there. He is the Prasangika master.  :)



Dawid: Would you now be able to tell me the exact moment when the table objectively and officially come into existence? When exactly will you pause the recording, jump up from the chair with arms raised to announce:


That's a good question. I was wondering about this sort of thing as well, if we could point to the exact time it was put together.

I don't think we could ever point to the exact time. We might be able to point to the exact second it was put together, certainly the exact minute—when the carpenter had finished inserting the last screw and began withdrawing his hand or just at that moment when he was finished inserting but not yet withdrawing. We might be able to pin that to a particular second, but we could continue to chop up that second forever, couldn't we? Turtles all the way down?

And that gets kind of interesting. I also began wondering about questions such as, Is there such a thing as exactly twelve o'clock noon? At any rate, what I was left with is that our time frame is arbitrary, a mental construct, including the birth-death time frame.

Working within that construct, we could say roughly when the table came into being, however, and I imagine everyone else would more or less agree. I imagine most would fall into the same two- or three-second interval, and everyone within five or ten seconds, depending on how fast the carpenter put it together. It sounds pretty easy to assemble.  :)

But if we see the time frame as a construct, we also see the table as a mental construct, too, right? Time and objects always go together. Time is an inherent aspect of perspectives. (It also seems to me that time could be made a part of the kosmic address system.)

Re: Radical Understanding IV

“I was wondering about this sort of thing as well”

Good! I think you're starting to break through now. Analysis forces us to confront and question our incessant mental habits.

“We might be able to point to the exact second it was put together, certainly the exact minute”

In our 4 hour slow-motion video, will you and all your ten friends taking the same test all jump up from the chair at the exact same second? Even the same minute? Even the same 10-minute span?

“and I imagine everyone else would more or less agree.”

How about self-conscious and intelligent extraterrestial snake-like creatures who don't use tables in their culture?

“I don't think we could ever point to the exact time.”
“what I was left with is that our time frame is arbitrary”
 
Ok. Now try to extend this realization to the IKEA table we were discussing. If there is not an exact and final moment the objective table is produced that is true for everybody, then what is this table, really?
 
 

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Dawid: Good! I think you're starting to break through now. Analysis forces us to confront and question our incessant mental habits.


Yes, I can see that this sort of thing could lead to a more thorough realization.



Dawid: In our 4 hour slow-motion video, will you and all your ten friends taking the same test all jump up from the chair at the exact same second? Even the same minute? Even the same 10-minute span?


Certainly the same minute. Let's watch the carpenter: He has inserted three legs to the table. He is working on the fourth. He's got it in. Some of the sharper viewers jump up right then. The carpenter begins to withdraw his hand and straighten up. One or two more viewers jump up at that point. He is straightened up and admiring his work. Most of the rest jump up then. One or two clever ones think that maybe the carpenter will do a little more and they will prove that everyone else jumped up too soon, but they're wrong; he's finished, and within a few seconds they realize that and stand up, the last one grudgingly, nearly 30 seconds after the first one, disappointed that he is last when he thought he might be really clever and be first.



David: “and I imagine everyone else would more or less agree.”

Dawid: How about self-conscious and intelligent extraterrestial snake-like creatures who don't use tables in their culture?


That's where we would bring in the subjective aspect. An ant would not be aware of the table in the same way that we were or notice any difference, other than perhaps something along the lines of “There is food now,” though not consciously, of course (we would have to enact Varela's 3p x 1p x 3p). Same with the bees and the flies and the young people. The extraterrestial snake-like creatures would be expert archeologists, however, or at least have an expert anthropologist in their landing party, so surely they would understand pretty quickly what it was all about. You know, they would have to have come an awfully long way to see this happening and have a lot of evolution under their belts; they would be pretty quick to catch on, one of the first to jump up, I imagine.

But yes, it's not purely objective; there will be a little variation. But certainly L/4 and on cross culturally, for the most part, would be able to tell when the table was finished and pretty much agree, within a minute certainly (though some might want to wait until dinner time and actually see it in use or something), though it is interesting that we wouldn't be able to determine an exact time. We could determine an “exact time” with the best instrument we had available, but it would only be so exacting, and the whole date-time system is a little arbitrary anyway.



Dawid: Ok. Now try to extend this realization to the IKEA table we were discussing. If there is not an exact and final moment the objective table is produced that is true for everybody, then what is this table, really?


With regard to time, I think everyone L/4 and on would be able to see eventually that the table was finished at about X O'clock on Y day, even if they waited around a while to see for sure; they would eventually see that when those who jumped up when the carpenter straightened up the table was functional as such at that moment.

They would be able to roughly agree on the table. Now it's true that the transcendental signified that has the signifier table and the referent that people in many cultures place plates, silverware, and food on is not perfectly the same for everyone, but it is reasonably or basically the same for everyone from a certain worldspace on.

So we can generally agree on what the table is but there is no perfectly objective, perfectly transcendental signified for table. That doesn't mean that the table doesn't have a relative existence, however; it just means that people have slightly different interpretations of it, see it in slightly different ways. Some may say it is painted white; some may say it is off white, for example. Some people may see it as a bad thing that helps make them fat; others may see it as a wonderful thing.

What is a table? One experiment we could try to answer this would be to remove all tables from our living space. In fact we probably wouldn't be able to really answer the question unless we did that.

(Don't forget to eventually talk about parts, to ask “What is a part?” as Tom was saying.)

Re: Radical Understanding IV

David: “(Don't forget to eventually talk about parts, to ask “What is a part?” as Tom was saying.)”

Not until a realization has occured. You see, the ignorant mind doesn't like to be focused on this analysis intensely. This is because the analysis shows the mind that its basic assumptions about reality might not be true. Since the mind is based on these unquestioned assumptions, the destruction of them would be equal to dying. And of course, the mind doesn't want to die. 

So to save itself, the mind then tries to make things more complex, run off in differents directions, argue that two things can be right at the same time, put itself on a “superior-observer”-pedestal, throw in grandiose new concepts like “quantum physics”, “transcendental signifier”, “superposition and evolution of the Schroedinger wave function”, etc etc. (This can easily be observed in meditation.) Behaviour like this quickly pulls attention away from the analysis, retreating to the safe haven of confusion, pride and/or “If only…”- or “One day I'll…”-thinking. Ignorance is the castle of the egoic, non-analytical mind.

David: “They would be able to roughly agree on the table.”
“Some of the sharper viewers… One or two more viewers jump up at that point… Most of the rest jump up then… within a few seconds they realize that and stand up…”
“there will be a little variation”
“That's where we would bring in the subjective aspect”
“it is interesting that we wouldn't be able to determine an exact time”
“the whole date-time system is a little arbitrary anyway”
“They would be able to roughly agree”
“people have slightly different interpretations of it, see it in slightly different ways”

So here you have presented alot of statements that should be considered strictly non-objective, since words like “roughly”, “slightly” and “a little” have no place within an objective framework. What we are inquiring about is whether there is a relative table existing objectively out there. If there is not one exact moment when the relative table objectively is produced, in what way do you reason that it was ever objectively produced? Let's look further into this:

Dictionary.com's definition of objective:

1: not influenced by personal feelings, interpretations, or prejudice; based on facts; unbiased.
2: intent upon or dealing with things external to the mind rather than with thoughts or feelings.
3: being the object of perception or thought; belonging to the object of thought rather than to the thinking subject.
4: pertaining to something that can be known, or to something that is an object or a part of an object; existing independent of thought or an observer as part of reality.

Here we can see that what is objective - as you claim the table is, relatively - cannot in any way be up for interpretation. If one thing can change according to different people's personal interpretations, then it is by definition not an objective thing. If you say at the 3h & 46m-mark during our 4-hour slow motion video that the table started to objectively exist, and then your friend says that it started to exist at the 3h & 38m-mark - how could this possibly be an objective event of production?

Objective is suppose to mean something that exists independent of interpretation, right? Don't just answer straight away to defend yourself. Please think deeply into this.

“If you do not feel a bit shattered, it is just abstract.”
- Emptiness Yoga.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

David: “(Don't forget to eventually talk about parts, to ask “What is a part?” as Tom was saying.)”

Dawid: Not until a realization has occured ...

Methinks more than death-denying complexifico-obfuscation inheres in the question what is a part?  In fact, some of the clinging-to-concept could be with Dawid?  But j'impose yet again.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Dawid: Ignorance is the castle of the egoic, non-analytical mind.


:)



Dawid: Here we can see that what is objective - as you claim the table is, relatively - cannot in any way be up for interpretation. If one thing can change according to different people's personal interpretations, then it is by definition not an objective thing. … Objective is suppose to mean something that exists independent of interpretation, right?


That's a very modernist interpretation of objectivity, that things exist free of interpretation, free of cultural contexts, etc. Modernity thought that that's how things existed, that they were just waiting to be discovered and once they were would simply add another fact to their body of knowledge, a fact that was free of interpretation.

Postmodernity came in and pointed out how all those facts were set in personal and cultural contexts, that they were in part interpretive—only that many of them, if not most of them, went to an extreme and declared that there were no facts (no objective element of reality) only interpretations.

But let's find a brick wall and then get everyone in the world to try to walk through it, including the postmoderns, including the Prasangikas. We will find that the brick wall has pretty good objectivity, that, in spite of all the analysis, the Prasangikas will not be able to walk through it or declare it to be simply an imputation of their mind.

If it were simply an imputation of the mind, they would be able, with meditation and analysis, to stop believing in it and walk through it. But they cannot do this. The wall will win! The wall will speak for its own objectivity when it is shown that no one in the world, no matter how enlightened, can walk through it.

Wilber writes very beautifully about this (I have bolded a few things):

Re: Radical Understanding IV

“That's a very modernist interpretation of objectivity, that things exist free of interpretation, free of cultural contexts, etc.”

And if you look into your experience of the (relative) table, or the brick wall, you will notice that this is precisely the interpretation of objectivity that you are currently holding, whether you'd like to or not. A pre-Green, reificationist, “whatever-consciousness-delivers-to-me-is-objectively-true-for-everybody”-perspective.

So, I noticed you didn't answer the question I posed. Let's dig into it again:

Since a table existing objectively is suppose to be free from all interpretation - otherwise it is by definition not an objective, separate thing at all - how is it possible for you and your 10 friends to differ with regard to when the objective table is objectively produced? If the table truly were objective, there should be no doubt or variation in your minds about exactly when the table comes into objective existence.

I don't think we should do this because it pulls the mind into two different directions, but you could also think about the brick wall in the same way. If you watch a construction worker starting to build a brick wall by piling bricks together one at a time, exactly when will the brick wall start to objectively exist? After the first brick is cemented? After the 98th brick? The 254th? The 526th? The 1008th? When the last brick is cemented? When it has been painted? Don't think about if we can walk through it or not, just answer the questions, and perhaps a new dimension will appear in your mind.

(And let's leave Wilber out of this. This is your inquiry.)

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Dawid: And if you look into your experience of the (relative) table, or the brick wall, you will notice that this is precisely the interpretation of objectivity that you are currently holding, whether you'd like to or not. A pre-Green, reificationist, “whatever-consciousness-delivers-to-me-is-objectively-true-for-everybody”-perspective.


That's not my interpretation of objectivity. You're confusing the relative and absolute truth, for one thing. Reification refers to one way of viewing why people don't see the absolute, nondual truth. It doesn't belong in a discussion about integral semiotics. It's not that Green doesn't reify and is living nonduality—the extreme postmoderns aren't seeing things nondually; they aren't enlightened; they've just gotten into a funny space where they think everything is interpretation and there are no objective facts, which they believe is an absolute fact that is true for all cultures (a performative contradiction).



Dawid: Since a table existing objectively is suppose to be free from all interpretation - otherwise it is by definition not an objective, separate thing at all.


I'm not saying that it is free of interpretation; I am simply saying that—on the relative side of the two-truths doctrine—there is an objective aspect of its existence; it is not simply interpretation. Notice how you say “a table”—you think so, too!


Dawid: How is it possible for you and your 10 friends to differ with regard to when the objective table is objectively produced?


Because it's not 100% objective; certain things are open to interpretation. But with regard to the building of the table, everyone will agree pretty closely on that; they will all agree that it has been built by the time they sit down to eat dinner on it for sure, though they may continue to quarrel about the exact moment it was actually finished. The Amish people get together and help each other build things, like barns. When it is finished, they all go home to dinner.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

I am nevertheless finding the analysis very useful!

We have a reifying mind—whether premodern, modern, postmodern, integral, super integral—and we have a nondual mind. Of course there is no seperation, but there comes a day when we simply don't believe in the reifying mind anymore but nevertheless continue to use the capacity when necessary.

For example, not reifying, we will see that the bus is coming down the street and that since part of our existence involves the gross body in the gross realm and the bus is also in the gross realm and larger than our gross body we will step out of the way.

An integral enlightenment would include this understanding, this recognition of the objective aspect of gross-realm objects and their importance. The postmodern buddha can stand in front of the bus if she likes!

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Dawid, you've asked how integral integrates the objective aspect and the interpretive aspect. I think one way to answer might be something along the lines of integral, evolutionary pragmatics. I gave one very simple (but paradoxical) example when I suggested that in an integral enlightenment we will step out of the way of the bus that doesn't really exist.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Dawid: (And let's leave Wilber out of this. This is your inquiry.)

Re: Radical Understanding IV

“Because it's not 100% objective; certain things are open to interpretation.”

Do you even know what you're talking about when you say this?

My advice to you would be to drop everything you know about Integral, Ken Wilber, Andrew Cohen, and just try to embrace this analysis with a beginner's mind. Why, you may ask? Well, do you want to be free or not? Do you want to experience the kingdom of fecking Heaven or not? Do you want to understand the transcendental gaze of Ramana in that famous photograph, or not? Do you truly want to understand:

Plop! 

Re: Radical Understanding IV

e: It may be best to talk from your own understanding in your own words. Then you have a better chance of understanding each other.


I haven't quoted anything that I hadn't already said myself, usually more than once. I merely thought, “Well, if he isn't believing me over Emptiness Yoga maybe he will believe Wilber over Emptiness Yoga.”

Re: Radical Understanding IV

David: “Because it's not 100% objective; certain things are open to interpretation.”

Dawid: Do you even know what you're talking about when you say this?


Yes, I do. The Prasangikas apparently say that every object is really an imputation of the mind, that there is nothing objective at all (this is not Nagarjuna, once again, but post-Nagarjuna interpreters).

I will believe that when one of those Prasangika masters steps in front of a moving bus.

Until then, I will go on believing that, while we can interpret the bus in different ways, it will send anyone to the bardo realm pretty quickly if they don't get out of the way when a moving one comes in their direction—thus, the bus has some objective aspect about it whether one believes it exists or not.

It doesn't matter how enlightened or nonreifying the Prasangika master is, the bus will flatten him like anyone else. It could be, you know, that some of the Tibetan mythology about enlightenment is informing this Prasangika analysis. It sounds awfully similar. They think that the master is beyond the objective world altogether, that he or she doesn't feel any pain no matter what happens to them.

Emptiness Yoga apparently says that all objects are simply figments of our imagination and that if we believe this we will be enlightened. But notice: even the author of that book will step very quickly out of the way of the moving bus. No matter how they are interpreting it or not reifying.

The Prasangikas apparently believe that if you analyze objects in this manner it will deepen your enlightenment. I think there is something to what they are saying. They are basically moving people up the vertical axis of the WC Lattice with this analysis, first getting them to reason properly, which would be the first order of business in largely Amber Tibet, and then apparently to view objects in a way that is similar to the way extreme postmodernists view objects.

But I think an integral analysis of objects/interpretations will help deepen meditation more, because this Prasangika analysis, or rather, the conclusions they apparently draw from them, aren't holding up to scrutiny. Brainwashing oneself not to believe in any objective aspect is not going to help; it will just put one in emptiness dreamland while one continues to choose these foods rather than those foods, step out of the way of buses, etc.



Dawid: So, the table's not 100% objective? Certain things are open to interpretation? In what sense does this follow any logical reasoning at all? Explain yourself clearly, preferrably using either our IKEA table or brick wall examples.

Again, our task is to find the objective table, or the objective brick wall. Because if they are objective, meaning that they exists somewhere out there independent of thought, we should be able to find them.


I prefer the bus example, because it is easier to pretend that there is no objective aspect when we are talking about a table or a pumpkin pie.

People will have different interpretations of the bus, but everyone will get out of its way if it is coming towards them.

The dog doesn't think “here comes the bus” or anything of the kind. Who knows what is going on through the dog's mind, nothing verbal as far as we know, but the dog knows the bus is big and will run over it if he or she doesn't get out of the way.

The child, the person who takes the bus every day to work, the person from another culture who may not have buses running through their territory will all interpret bus in a slightly different way—kind of like people don't always agree on the exact color of something—but they all understand it is dangerous as a rhinoceros if it is coming towards them.

It is impossible to separate interpretation from object completely or neatly. They arise together every time. But that does not mean that everything is interpretation and that we can say there is no objective aspect, though I can see why people are tempted to say that when it is seen that objects only arise within perspectives. But it could also be said that there can be no interpretation without objects.

In other words, it is impossible to find that table (impossible to neatly separate object from interpretation), but that doesn't mean there is zero objective aspect. Use the example of the bus or take all the tables out of your living space and that will become clear. Take all the tables out of a Prasangika master's living space and see if he doesn't notice the difference and want them back.

At any rate, I think analysis is good, but it needs to be an integral Prasangika analysis. Just telling ourselves that objects don't really exist is kind of silly because everyone will go on employing them and acting as if they do have some objective existence, even if they can't find them precisely, free of interpretation, under analysis.



Dawid: Because if they are objective, meaning that they exists somewhere out there independent of thought, we should be able to find them.


No one is saying that objects exist independently of thought. Objects only arise with interpretations, just like interpretations only arise with objects. The two arise and fall together. Nonduality is beyond and including both.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

“this is not Nagarjuna, once again, but post-Nagarjuna interpreters”

You'll be happy to know that I - like all Madhyamika scholars - hold Nagarjuna as the highest authority on the Middle Way teachings. So if you find me contradicting him in anything I say, be sure to tell me so. (With scriptural sources included to back up the accusation).

“I will believe that when one of those Prasangika masters steps in front of a moving bus.”

Since you bring up this example again and again, it's obvious you find it important. So let's adress it.

By reading my posts through my time here on this forum, I'm sure you've figured out that I do not subscribe to either post-modern absolutism (“The only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth”) or subjective idealism (“Everything is of the character of mind”/”No external world outside mind exists”). And let me say - I always step out of the way when buses are coming down the street, without feeling that this behaviour contradicts my conceptual understanding of Reality in any way.

The Dalai Lama says:

“In Mahayana Buddhism there are two basic approaches of philosophical investigation. One of these concludes that there is no objective world out there [The Yogachara/Cittamatra school]. The other one asserts that there is indeed an objective world, but not in the Cartesian sense of existence independent of consciousness. This latter is the Prasangika Madhyamika view.”

So what we're dealing with here is a subtle teaching.

Will what I've said above be enough for you to trust the analysis, or do you still feel that the analysis is aimed at developing a pathological Green belief system, a subjective idealist belief system, or an irrational belief system? It's important that one removes atleast the coarest doubts from one's mind regarding the analysis, or process of inquiry will be hopeless.

“Take all the tables out of a Prasangika master's living space and see if he doesn't notice the difference and want them back.”

What you are doing here is accusing the Prasangika view of having fallen into the extreme of nihilism/utter nonexistence. If you keep consistent with the analysis, it will become crystal clear that utter nonexistence does never follow from a realization of emptiness. If utter nonexistence is asserted after a supposed realization of emptiness has occured, that realization is not a realization of emptiness/the middle way, but something else like a jhana state, or a makyo-illusion.

”At any rate, I think analysis is good, but it needs to be an integral Prasangika analysis.”
 
This is what I am presenting to you. All Amber elements are thrown out, and all Green elements in danger of becoming pathological are also not present. Also the process of analysis doesn't ever fall prey to the myth of the given, but all concepts presented come with Kosmic Adresses.
 
“I prefer the bus example”
 
I'll tell you why this example is not as good as the table or the brick wall examples. (Phenomena). It is because you're bringing another entity into the analysis here - the person - which you then want to put in a relation to the bus. (Relation in the sense that there is a collision between the person and the phenomenon.) This is fine to do, but that kind of analysis - the analysis of relationship between two entities - is too advanced and ultimately fruitless to perform if an initial realization of emptiness has not been achieved in the mindstream of the person conducting the analysis. (As clearly has not happened in your case, not even conceptually.)
 
Therefore, if you're still willing, I insist that we continue with an initial example, with a simple object like our IKEA table or your brick wall. (Or even with the bus standing still on the ground, if you find that a more compelling object to work with.)
 
So the question still stands: how come the brick wall or the table can exist objectively if we can observe no exact event of objective production? Because as you know, if the table/brick wall truly existed objectively, then the exact event/moment of its objective production should be evident to all.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

I thought we might well be miscommunicating a little, and your post has confirmed it. However, we're still miscommunicating a little.  :)


Dawid: This is fine to do, but that kind of analysis - the analysis of relationship between two entities - is too advanced and ultimately fruitless to perform if an initial realization of emptiness has not been achieved in the mindstream of the person conducting the analysis. (As clearly has not happened in your case, not even conceptually.)


To begin with, the parenthesis remark should be about the very last card we we play. It's a five-star habanero card. You can say that sort of thing; just about everyone else has, directly or indirectly, implicitly or explicitly. But it should be about the very last card we play, if not the very last.

And it's better if we can avoid playing it altogether. I have played it at times, usually after I have felt some other cards of that nature have been played. It's not out of bounds, but it never feels nice on the other end, and it always kind of blows the inquiry.

For one thing, it personalizes it. The moment we personalize a discussion and make it into a “you”-and-“me” thing or a you-vs.-me thing we lose track of the inquiry, at least for the moment. You've said recently that you don't resonate with Andrew Cohen's teachings—well, I think you would do well to resonate with at least one aspect of it (really more than one, but one would be a good start!).

They make a big thing over there about “enlightened communication,” and whether they always live up to it or not is another question, but it is a very profound thing, and sometimes it does come off. It's a discussion unto itself, but for now let me just say that part of it includes not personalizing the discussion as long as we can help it (or for as long as it isn't really necessary) and just saying what you feel will move the discussion forward and shed light. You do extremely well with that already, better than anyone your age, perhaps, but now and then, usually with me, :), you fall a little short. I probably fall short sometimes, too; it's very difficult, a whole art unto itself. When it really comes off the experience is every bit as profound as experiences of emptiness, if not more so, because really it's a shared experience of emptiness at a particular altitude.


And, also, it's not true!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :)

And I will leave it at that.



Dawid: You'll be happy to know that I - like all Madhyamika scholars - hold Nagarjuna as the highest authority on the Middle Way teachings.


That's great, but he was a third-century fellow, and I don't think he is the best Buddhism has to offer. I think Shunryu Suzuki, for example, had three times the realization and three times the interpretation. I am preparing a post about him now, by the way. I actually wrote one this morning but decided not to post it. It will be coming shortly.


Dawid: By reading my posts through my time here on this forum, I'm sure you've figured out that I do not subscribe to either post-modern absolutism (“The only absolute truth is that there is no absolute truth”) or subjective idealism (“Everything is of the character of mind”/”No external world outside mind exists”). And let me say - I always step out of the way when buses are coming down the street, without feeling that this behaviour contradicts my conceptual understanding of Reality in any way.


Very nicely, said. Recently you said that only Prasangikas declare that everything is an imputation of the mind, and I asked you to differentiate that from the subjective idealism of the Vijnanavada school, and you made an attempt, but I still didn't quite get the difference. Could you please try that again?


~     ~       ~

Okay, let's just get back to the analysis and see where it goes.


Dawid: How come the brick wall or the table can exist objectively if we can observe no exact event of objective production? Because as you know, if the table/brick wall truly existed objectively, then the exact event/moment of its objective production should be evident to all.


I don't see that we have to ascertain the exact moment something is finished. Why is the exact moment so important?

If we take the example of the brick wall, we could say that it is finished once the last brick has been laid or when the cement has dried or strengthened as much as it is going to dry or strengthen.

I just read online that cement can take anywhere from three hours to two weeks before it can strengthen as much as it is going to strengthen. So let's say, it's difficult to tell the exact moment when any brick wall has strengthened to its full extent, but whenever that is, outside of, say, two weeks at the most, it is without a doubt finished.

The table is easier—the table is finished once the last peg has been inserted. Silliness to say that has been completed at any other time, yes? So there we have an exact moment.

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Hi Guys

Just wanted to say that as an observer this discussion is great. Glad you're both sticking at it despite sometimes “talking past each other”.

Looking forward to the next step!

James

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“But it should be about the very last card we play, if not the very last.”

Why need we be Green sentimentalists about this issue? Either emptiness is understood conceptually, or understood directly, or it is not. I am quite open with the fact that about 95% of my existence this day for example, emptiness was not a part of my mindstream; I was lost in the ol' monkey-mind. (Saturdays at work… jeez.) If you tell me that my monkey-mind was running rampant today, why should I be offended? It is the truth.

“That's great, but he was a third-century fellow, and I don't think he is the best Buddhism has to offer.”

Maybe we could invent a new word: ”time-discrimination”? (And here I mean discrimination in the social sense.) It doesn't necessarily follow that just because somebody lived earlier than you, that s/he automatically becomes less developed in certain lines, the cognitive-, spiritual- (if there is such a thing) and self- (if there is such a thing) lines in this case. Nagarjuna and the Buddha are really good examples of this.

Nagarjuna was an, atleast, proto 2-tier thinker, no doubt. However, this is quite a different topic, and should be discussed elsewhere.

~     ~      ~

“Okay, let's just get back to the analysis and see where it goes.”

Great.

“Why is the exact moment so important?”

It is of essential importance, and I'll tell you why. Everything comes down to this - if there is no exact moment of production when the table begins to exist, how could there possibly be an objective (relatively or absolutely) table out there at all? If there is no objective table out there, what is it that we're clinging on to? If there is no clinging on to, how could there be suffering? Let's resort to logic to adress this.

I have below made a diagram of the two possible kinds of production there is. (These are ways in which we think about production from a reificationist standpoint, and not logically accurate representations, as will become obvious.) Let's begin to look at example A, which is the sudden kind of production. This is how a coarse reificationist mind thinks of production. One moment the IKEA table is nonexistent, and then suddenly it exists. This kind of production doesn't work because we have already agreed - I think we agreed, atleast? - that all people have their own opinion on when the IKEA table is produced. There is not one exact, objective moment like in my diagram, example A, when everybody definitely and simply agrees that, “-Yes, that was it, the table now came into existence”.  So example A doesn't work, and we're left with example B, which is how a more subtle reificationist mind thinks of production.

However, this is also untenable because the nature of that kind of production - the gradual type - logically has to go on ad infinitum if that truly were the kind of production we were talking about. If you think example B is better than A, then you agree that the objective IKEA table is objectively gradually produced. Then gradual production is the nature of the IKEA table's production. And since something's objective nature cannot change, it must be gradual always. Let me explain by using the picture I made:

Look into the green box there I've named the “Infinite Zoom Box”. Imagine that you keep zooming, zooming, zooming and zooming until you are blue in the face. Can you imagine in your mind a point when the zoom is finished and you find the absolute point when the production of the IKEA table exactly begins?

- If yes, then at that level of zoom, doesn't the gradual kind of production (example B) simply turn into a sudden kind of production (example A) but at a much smaller scale, and hence merely fall prey to the defeating consequences of example A?

- If no, good, because you can't. So it follows logically that either the IKEA table has to have 1) existed eternally, or that it 2) never comes into existence at all. Can you accept either of these two alternatives?

There are no other kinds of production. So what to do?

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(Update:

There's an interesting and sneaky error in my post above that I discovered while taking a walk after posting the reply above. If you find it, it will prove that you're really on board with this analysis. The interesting thing is that the error itself will also help to deepen the understanding the analysis is intended to bring about, so I'm not going to tell what it is just yet. Attached below are hints for you.)

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I see the error.  It's here:

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Close, Tom, but no cigar.

:P

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Dawid: It is of essential importance, and I'll tell you why. Everything comes down to this - if there is no exact moment of production when the table begins to exist, how could there possibly be an objective (relatively or absolutely) table out there at all?

Let's just revisit the birth of the table, if there was one, for a moment. What if I were to say that the table begins when the last peg is inserted? Would there be any other reasonable answer?

Another line on this that we could take is that the table doesn't ultimately exist or inherently exist because it has a beginning—13.7 billion years ago or whenever the first part came into existence. But, could we ever determine an exact beginning to the universe?

There is no gokumi; there is no smallest particle in the UR; it is turtles all the way down, forever different and smaller species of turtles. To find an exact time the universe came into being we would have to find the very first particle that sprung up into existence, but we will never do that.

The best we would ever be able to do is find the beginning of the very smallest particle we knew about, right?

But we could say that there is no such thing as fifteen billion years ago and conclude that there must have been some beginning in time, however indeterminate, right? And because it, the universe, and everything in it, including the parts of the table, actually had a beginning in time they couldn't inherently exist.

I think what we need to do is add perspectives: we can 1) see empirically that the table has some relative existence, and that is important to include; 2) see that the table's beginning was 13.7 beginning years ago, though we could never find the exact beginning; 3) see that since it had a beginning, however indeterminate, it doesn't inherently exist.



Dawid: If there is no objective table out there, what is it that we're clinging on to?


That's a good question. Maybe the table got destroyed in a fire and we are clinging to it still even though it is nothing but ashes now.

So it is some image-feeling we are really clinging to and not the table—is this not the case also when the table actually empirically exists?



Dawid: If yes, then at that level of zoom, doesn't the gradual kind of production (example B) simply turn into a sudden kind of production (example A) but at a much smaller scale, and hence merely fall prey to the defeating consequences of example A?


Yes, I think you're right, because there is no gokumi.

We might say there is 1) ~Orange empirical thinking—the table exists when the carpenter finishes putting it together; 2) ~ Turquoise/Indigo, deep-time-holonic thinking—the table's existence really began way back when, and things are in constant evolutionary flux. And now 3), courtesy of Dogen-zenji and Shunryu Suzuki:

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Shunryu: Strictly speaking, there is no connection between I myself yesterday and I myself this moment; there is no connection whatsoever.

How silly.  That's a misreading of quantum physics, typical, I must say, for a spiritual type who tries to speak in the language of physics.  Beginner's mind truly. 

In quantum physics, Newtonian causality, yes, is undermined to the extent of quantum probability.  But on the quantum level, every particle evolves in a continuous fashion over time as specified by the evolution of the Schroedinger wave equation.  That evolution is strict, and implies strict connection past to present.  This evolution and connection is the thing that gives us our reliable world where stepping out of the way of a bus makes sense.

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Tom, in the spirit of integral methodological pluralism, you are right!

And Shunryu Suzuki and Dogen-zenji are also right.

They are looking at it from different perspectives, enacting different worldspaces, employing different methodologies.

The quantum physicists are in zone-#6 and the Buddhists are in zone-#1, though the way they phrase things makes it sound like zone-#6.

Empirically, zone-#6, I don't know how we would it differently than that evolutionary continuum.

But the meditation adepts see that as a mental construct, as a part of a dreamscape like sleep dreaming only waking dreaming (Maharshi called them “dream one” and “dream two”).

The evolutionary continuum is one way of looking at time, and it's very important to integrate. But is it really true that things evolve like that? I think it is an important perspective for sure—it gives us an important moral orientation, for one thing—but we can take other perspectives on it as well, including trans-verbal perspectives and ultimately nonduality. Those higher perspectives developed as a stage with proper integration of previous stages can also enhance operations, enhance moral development, etc.

Almaas also offers something very much like what Dogen-zenji and Suzuki talk about:

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David, it's just bad physics, and no stitching of zones will render it good physics.  The only “thing” that phenomenally appears without cause is The Everything.  One level down from The Everything is every bit part of which The Everything is comprised.  You cannot apply Everything viewing to part viewing without generating a category confusion.

Yes, everything seems to “flash” at the level of the quanta.  At that level, there is no continuity—this is the essence of “quantum.”  Movement is perceived as a form of discrete happenings, a “flashing” if you will.  But that flashing, in the whole quantum theory, not just the part Shunryu cherrypicks, is traced via the continuous possibility space the Schroedinger wave describes.  Flashing cannot be understood without this description, which results in a sequence that only can be described as at least quasi-causal.
'
Wilber's writings in Quantum Questions is IMO early highly split Wilber.  Later Wilber is slightly less split.  No further comment.

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Actually, one further comment.  Here's Wilber from QQ:

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Tom: David, it's just bad physics, and no stitching of zones will render it good physics.


The point is: it's not physics.

They are doing Buddhism. In integral parlance that means state training, moral development, and the like.

They understand that if you want to light charcoal you have to touch it with a match and that then there will be fire and then ashes. Just like they understand that the table is here and that if we want to move it we will have to apply some sort of force to it, a basic understanding of physics, you might say.

And Suzuki did not “cherry pick” anything from quantum physics, for Buddha's sake! He was quoting Dogen-zenji who lived from 1200 to 1253!

(The quantum physicists, just to underscore that point, flashed into existence in the early part of the 1900s.)

The Buddhists are also pointing to trans-conceptual, trans-verbal experience. It would be interesting to find someone as competent as Suzuki was in nonduality who is also competent in quantum physics. Wilber would be one of the closest people we have to that, and possibly even the closest. In any case, the implications of this phenomenological experience and physics are interesting—it may be that Dogen-zenji was committing a category error (understandable for someone in the thirteenth century), or it could be that he was speaking metaphorically (quite likely, as Zen teachers speak metaphorically right and left, as much and as beautifully as anyone else). I doubt very much he missed the connection between fire, charcoal, and ashes, or Suzuki—they would have to be real cases of stunted development to make that mistake as adults, wouldn't they? Perhaps they aren't such cases of stunted development but are talking about something else?


I will have to give you an “Incomplete” on the report, and that is a gift! The question involved what the physicists said, not Wilber. And apparently all the quantum physicists thought that quantum physics had nothing to do with mysticism—so are you disagreeing with them here? Stubbornly refusing to listen to them?





Tom: Wilber's writings in Quantum Questions is IMO early highly split Wilber.  Later Wilber is slightly less split.


Nonduality on the conceptual level, in second-tier altitudes, is paradoxical. There is the One and the Many. There is Tom, Schroedinger, and Wilber, and the “not-one, not-two.” There is the “not-one, not-two,” and the Unmanifest and the Manifest. There is no split there, just jnani plus at least a second-tier interpretation. Some people will say, “But 'not one, not two,' includes the many,” as if that is very clever thing to say. Of course it does, but if there wasn't also a many, why did they open their mouth and speak?



Tom: Is light not timeless and spaceless?


Light is in the manifest, Tom. It is in time; I don't know about spaceless.

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Light is not in time, David.  It doesn't evolve.  It is probably the basis of time and space, and is also in the universe: frames it and is it at a deep level.

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Tom: Light is not in time, David.


So you believe in the timeless, unmanifest now? I think that's great, but I don't think there is light in the unmanifest, nor that light can be considered timeless.

The sun is the source of light, yes? Our sun emerged 4.57 billion years ago (they seem to think it had a beginning, by the way). That means that in this solar system there wasn't light before then, right? Perhaps there were volcanoes or burning embers before then, but that would be a product of combustion, right? Involving emerged materials.

Other suns may have emerged earlier than that, but they still emerged in time.


Tom: It doesn't evolve.


Rays from the sun don't change at all once they have left the sun? They just keep going and going and going? Maybe they do, but I wonder if we know enough to say that.

In any case, you've said that “light is not in time … It doesn't evolve.” So … how do you square this with your post-metaphysical ideas?

I'm not really against something like Buddha nature with qualities and Buddha nature without qualities (sunyata). Are you basically equating Buddha nature with qualities with light?

Re: Radical Understanding IV

David: So you believe in the timeless, unmanifest now?

I have all along.  Every time I mention the word suchness or its like, or talk about the unity of duals, or say that everything implies its opposite, etc., I am referencing the timeless experience, which is quite developed in me.  Your misreading, therefore, deriving from, I assume, a view there's but one way of approaching these matters.

David: The sun is the source of light, yes?

No, just the reverse.  Time to bone up on your cosmology.

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Light is photons, and photons change in the sense of becoming matter, and of course matter changes and evolves, but photons do not evolve.  They've been photons from day one, and they, as a primal form of energy, are presumably the source of matter.  The central theory of quantum physics is QED, which is the theory of the interaction between light and matter. 

If you mentally place yourself within the frame of light, all space and time disappear (shrink to a point, which doesn't exist).  I'm therefore saying light provides a direct analogy to Mr. Bud without qualities.

Light is the frame of the universe, and within that frame we talk as if we see light-mediated effects, including basic sight, and evolution, the works.  But no-one has ever seen light.  Never.  It's invisible.  We assume its there because … we see.  It's the basis of sight.  And IMO the basis of space and time.

Here's a little Roger Penrose from his chapter in the book On Space And Time.  Penrose thinks the universe will end in a bunch of black holes.  Those black holes, according to Hawking, emit light and gravity waves, but no matter, ie, no mass, ie, nothing from which either a clock or space could be constructed.  Over time, this gravity and light emission depletes the black hole of its substance, causing it to disappear.  Penrose suggests that when the last black hole disappears, and when the last massive particle devolves into its pre-mass consituents, the universe as a space-time thing will disappear into the frame left by gravity and light.  Why?  Because a massless universe is timeless.  Light btw is massless, therefore always timeless.  In any event, this speculative progression sets the stage for a new instability, called a new big bang, which according to Penrose would essentially pick up from where the other left off (gravity structure).

Re: Radical Understanding IV

Well, I'm all for the light within! I thought you were talking about a different sort of light.

Yes, I knew you were on board with suchness and such; I thought you were not unboard with relative unmanifest and manifest, nirvikalpa, turiya, etc.

Almaas describes the absolute and emptiness in terms of light a few times in Inner Journey Home. Here is one example:

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Of course, people typically associate consciousness, or God, with light.

My having explained a little of this to you, do you think Wilber's assertion that science doesn't support mysticism can be upheld?

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Can I qualify what Almaas says?  He's a little off on his science.  Darkness is not the absence of light, but the absence of matter.  Assume you're standing near the sun looking away from the sun into an empty region of space (empty of matter and other suns).  Also assume you don't see any matter-reflections (ie, what is typically called light).  What you're looking into is:

1) absolutely black and

2) filled with light.

Light is invisible and is therefore black, and transparent, just as Almaas says, but clarified.  Clear as light, hey?

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David: In any case, you've said that “light is not in time … It doesn't evolve.” So … how do you square this with your post-metaphysical ideas?

My current ideas, including analogies I draw from science, are not metaphysical in the sense of positing a God-like given.  They're open to verification, and are rooted one hand in the physical.  Fwiw, I've never positioned myself with the post-metaphysical language per se.  That's Wilber's language.  For me, “that something is” seems a priori, already there before any saying can occur.  An a priori is one definition of a metaphysical. 

Light not evolving is new in my appreciation, and has given me a clarified context for framing my experiences.  I early connected timelessness with light, but it took some digging to understand that light exists in its own very different world, if you will, that it's world-framing or -creating, and that it's a non-evolutionary factor in universal evolutionary process.  I currently wonder if Einstein's relativity is not the absolute or frame-side of science, with quantum physics the relative “happening” side.  It sounds like it should be the reverse, with non-locality and quantum connectedness etc, but Einstein's relativity is a little misnamed.  He was shooting for a frame-independent formulation of law, which is independent, objective, non-contingent, in a word absolute.

Of his two theories, general relativity deals with gravity as an explicitly structuring component of space-time, special relativity with the relation between space-time and light (light is also space-time structuring).  Gravity is possibly massless, therefore outside space-time per se.  We know this is true for light.  Relativity might thus be the science appropriate to the absolute voice, which I would see as in a sense never not evolving to higher expressions because light is matter and matter evolves, but doesn't (in its pure light aspect), hence a constantly moving (relativing) absolute expression.  No wonder ideas of God have evolved.

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Tom: “I currently wonder if Einstein's relativity is not the absolute or frame-side of science, with quantum physics the relative “happening” side.  It sounds like it should be the reverse, with non-locality and quantum connectedness etc, but Einstein's relativity is a little misnamed.  He was shooting for a frame-independent formulation of law, which is independent, objective, non-contingent, in a word absolute.”

Wilber says this:

“As everybody knows, Einstein's theory is badly misnamed; he thought about calling it things like absolute theory or invariance theory. The idea is that there is no fixed point anywhere in the universe that can be considered center; each thing can be located only relative to each other; this still creates absolutes and universals, but in a sliding system of reference to each other and to the system as a whole at any given time, with time itself being set by the invariant speed of light”

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I see that Wilber appreciates an aspect of what I'm saying, but my conclusion regarding Einstein and 'absolute' arises from a different perspective.  Wilber says the absoluteness inheres in the “absolute relativity” Einstein's theory posits.  I can see that aspect, but I'm going further to say all motion (time) and all location (space) is framed by a reference that metes out asymmetrical frame-specific differences.  Thus in my example of two balls moving relative to each other, a certain understanding of Einstein's theory might say, well, A is moving away from B from A's perspective, but B is moving away from A from B's perspective.  This obvious symmetry has limits, and gives way at a point to asymmetry, ie, frame dependence. Thus the clocks for each of these balls will be ticking at different rates: one clock will be ticking slower than the other, and that asymmetry cannot be reversed by simply reversing perspective.  What gives rise to that asymmetry?  It must be a reference frame outside the balls.  That reference frame can possibly be called the frame in which light exists, which births time, space and matter as we know it.  That frame is inherently part of anything that is: you can't move an eyelash without that movement being instantaneously shaped—in its isness—by the being-frame that light is.

Btw, David, photons don't break down in constituent parts.  No such parts have been found for photons.  As to string theory, good luck with that one!  I hear the flapping wings of dodo birds.

Also, Almaas is not in a different realm.  You're deferring a little too much to these people.  Almaas is a physicist in his previous life.  And he's talking physics in the quote I reference, not metaphyisics, just like Shun-whoever above.  Bad physics is bad physics.

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Tom, my understanding is that photons are UR particles and that we will find UR particles more fundamental than that, if we already haven't. Aren't strands more fundamental than photons?

I think Almaas is in a different realm in that particular aspect of his work, phenomenology rather than physics. So we would ask people like him and the Sufis and Buddhists about that sort of thing, not physicists. Physicists don't generally study meditative states; they generally study something else.

Maybe there will be some intersection between physics and mysticism some day, where we will connect some phenomenological findings with discoveries in physics or something. But they are pretty different. I read earlier that photons can deteriorate under radiation. That doesn't sound like something that's timeless or the building block of the universe or causal or nondual nonstuff. [1]

There is a chart in the back of Integral Psychology, by the way, on page 210, called “phenomenological signs of appearance” from Highest Yoga Tantra. The last four are “clear autumn moonlight,” “clear autumn sunlight,” “thick blackness of autumn night,” “clear autumn dawn.”

Does masslessness necessarily mean timelessness? What does a dream weigh?

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Tom: Photons don't break down in constituent parts.  No such parts have been found for photons.


Because they haven't been found doesn't mean they don't exist. There was a time when nothing smaller than a cell was known; then it was a molecule, then an atom. Will we ever get to the bottom of it? Or will the discovery just keep going as higher cognitive structures emerge? Why should we assume we have reached the fundamental level?

But more importantly with regard to photons, my understanding is that they are “the basic units of light and all other forms of electromagnetic radiation.” [1] But that doesn't mean that photons are the basic units of everything. In your opinion does it go something like, photons –> quarks –> atoms –> molecules –> cells? (I know I left out hadrons, protons, neutrons.)

It's my understanding that photons do not belong in that holonic unfolding. If you think so, can you show me anyone else who agrees with you?



Tom: As to string theory, good luck with that one!  I hear the flapping wings of dodo birds.

That may be true, but no one knows. So, why would you make a comment like this? Do you think that while no one else really knows whether it's wrong or not you do know? Or do you not really understand that no one really knows one way or the other now? If no one knows one way or the other, isn't it best to remain open about it?

Andrew Cohen believes that the postmodern disease is cynicism, and if you look around you can see it is true. There are some forums you can go to where it is one cynical comment after another. That is the cultural norm, and if you do that in a lot of places people will think you're really cool.

But there is a better way! The better way includes not being negative unless negativity is evolutionary in some way. It includes being open to something when we don't know one way or another.

You like Pierce, right? This is from the Wikipedia article on Pierce:

Do not block the way of inquiry.

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David: So, why would you make a comment like this?

Because I've read some books that suggest such, and I tend to agree.  Sure, string theory could eventually prove itself right, but it's not even a “theory” yet so much as an array of mathematical models none of which have any empirical backing and all of which at some important point contradict each other.  String “theory” is better string speculations.

Here's a string theory chaser for ya.  Or try this one.

As to other aspects of your post, today is Monday.  Sunday's over dude.