17 Jun 10
1 edit
Originally posted by AThousandYoungBut if koans are not intended to convey content, how could they be used to make false claims?
\
EDIT - In my opinion it is a often a rhetorical trick people use so that intelligent opposition cannot refute their false claims. It's a power play; the person is trying to maintain an intellectually superior attitude but their intellect can't back it up.
If someone did use Buddhist material in the way you describe, it would be pure sophistry.
17 Jun 10
2 edits
Originally posted by zeeblebotReally, the point of this article seems to be that there is a psychological arrow of time. Without a psyche, this disappears. Well, duh.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/what-happens-when-you-die_b_596600.html
However this does not affect the thermodynamic arrow of time, which is the one outside of our minds in the "real world".
The psychological arrow of time is thought [who?] to be reducible to the thermodynamic arrow: it has deep connections with Maxwell's demon and the physics of information; In fact, it is easy to understand its link to the Second Law of Thermodynamics if we view memory as correlation between brain cells (or computer bits) and the outer world. Since the Second Law of Thermodynamics is equivalent to the growth with time of such correlations, then it states that memory will be created as we move towards the future (rather than towards the past).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow_of_time#The_psychological.2Fperceptual_arrow_of_time
17 Jun 10
Ooh one of the really annoying memes that is generally misunderstood - the "beginning" of time.
The "beginning" of time is the farthest back we can possibly know anything about. How can time begin? It's like asking how tall height is. Likewise, the observable universe with it's XX light year diameter (whatever it is) is as far as we can know anything about, not the limit of what exists.
18 Jun 10
Originally posted by zeeblebotto zeeblebot
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/what-happens-when-you-die_b_596600.html
Death doesnt exsist, and what people assume as death, is when they have to give up their material body.
Since we are not the body, but a spiritual being and eternal, then their is no death for us ever.
So after the body dies, the spiritual being goes forward to another life, and takes birth again.
If a Russian man dies, he may be born an American woman in the next life, or whatever according to the karma accumilated.
So thats what happens ! ( any questions )
18 Jun 10
Originally posted by AThousandYoungNo. Koans are All a Single Technique that is used in order to offer a solid ground for all kinds of conceptual and non-conceptual awareness at every level, but your mind has to be trained in order to receive it (in order to establish this solid ground and then to cultivate it on your own, that is; this phrase of mine is merely a notion and it has to be dismissed as soon as the point is taken). This is the reason why the koans were used solely amongst monks: the koans were nothing but just another way amongst many used by the advanced monks that they wanted to prepare their students for a fruitful meditation. And surely there is “something” that was passing directly from mind to mind (it is called transmittance) by means of the koans although you cannot see it.
Right. Koans are techniques for adjusting one's state of mind. They are not means of communicating precise, concrete ideas between people.
It drives me nuts when people try to use techniques to adjust my state of mind as though they were some kind of guru I needed enlightenment from when we're talking about science or other ideas involving ...[text shortened]... trying to maintain an intellectually superior attitude but their intellect can't back it up.
Of course there is actually no thing to pass from mind to mind; but in order to pass It, the Zennists we use objects and images that they do not contain fractals of common reason, which they have the form of a koan and they cannot on their own hold something more than a glance. Then, seemingly all of a sudden, the one who “sat quietly and did nothing” and finally received the transmittance gets her/ his satori and can proceed free at last -but this deep understanding was actually ready to arise in her/ his hard trained consciousness. So the soon-to-arise thoughts of the person whose point of attention is thus permanently shifted are getting deeper and deeper in the intrinsic reality that penetrates the Floating World because the barriers set by dualism are debunked thanks to the new holistic approach.
So koans is merely a technique amongst many that eases a hard trained practitioner to overcome the obstacles (the dualist approach) by means of the concentrated power of her/ his mind; then the practitioner has to work hard in order to maintain constant awareness of the illusionary-like nature of all phenomena. Then this point of attention is so forcefully fixed that the practitioner is permanently focused at that. And then it becomes his own nature, so there is no such a thing as attachment to a specific method and/ or to a specific point of attention because the mind penetrates naturally all things at once. That's all
😵
18 Jun 10
Originally posted by AThousandYoungedit: "They are not means of communicating precise, concrete ideas between people."
Right. Koans are techniques for adjusting one's state of mind. They are not means of communicating precise, concrete ideas between people.
It drives me nuts when people try to use techniques to adjust my state of mind as though they were some kind of guru I needed enlightenment from when we're talking about science or other ideas involving ...[text shortened]... trying to maintain an intellectually superior attitude but their intellect can't back it up.
Yes, No, Yes and No, not Yes and No
😵
18 Jun 10
Originally posted by AThousandYoungIf we can keep advancing in technology and math and fundamental physics like we have for the past couple hundred years, we may find ourselves able to actually see the time before what we call the beginning of time. This is predicated on the assumption there is more universe all around us than in our own 'finite but unbounded' universe. That is to say perhaps another universe begat our universe which will begat other universes which perhaps we will find that's what black holes are, or at least some black holes, the progenitors of the next generation of universes.
Ooh one of the really annoying memes that is generally misunderstood - the "beginning" of time.
The "beginning" of time is the farthest back we can possibly know anything about. How can time begin? It's like asking how tall height is. Likewise, the observable universe with it's XX light year diameter (whatever it is) is as far as we can know anything about, not the limit of what exists.
If that is true then what we think of as the 'beginning of time' may in fact just be our local reset of the universal clock where there are an infinite # of such times going on all around us, some at the far end of time, some at the beginning of it's own big bang which for it is the start of that universes time.
There is already hints of that kind of thing in the CBR data, nothing proven of course yet but it looks more and more as time goes on and more experimental data comes in from myriad fields, from math, physics, astronomy, chemistry, etc., that there is more going on in the universe than we can see at this point in time.
That's my story and I'm sticking with it🙂
The idea of an infinite order of universes gives me more hope than all the religious doctrine on our little planet.
18 Jun 10
Originally posted by sonhouseI like your story and the hypothesis that the observer universe is one amongst trillions that came into existence out of the Oceans of Multiworlds😵
If we can keep advancing in technology and math and fundamental physics like we have for the past couple hundred years, we may find ourselves able to actually see the time before what we call the beginning of time. This is predicated on the assumption there is more universe all around us than in our own 'finite but unbounded' universe. That is to say perhap ...[text shortened]... er of universes gives me more hope than all the religious doctrine on our little planet.
18 Jun 10
Originally posted by twhiteheadI'd have to meet the people you're talking about to judge whether they speak sense or nonsense.
The difference being that the Buddhists can sound profound while talking nonsense while most other people just sound silly.
I'd be keen to read how you account for creativity in mechanistic terms; if you don't mind, I'd also like to read your version of the function, if any, of consciousness, in the general sense of phenomenal experience and the special sense of self-reflexive awareness.
18 Jun 10
Originally posted by Bosse de NageWell I am usually not able to judge. It often seems like nonsense to me, but I realize that they may be using their own special language and relying on information and ideas that I am not privy to. This is not unlike Christians and their use of words like 'life' and 'death' in totally non scientific ways.
I'd have to meet the people you're talking about to judge whether they speak sense or nonsense.
I'd be keen to read how you account for creativity in mechanistic terms;
I haven't really thought about it.
if you don't mind, I'd also like to read your version of the function, if any, of consciousness, in the general sense of phenomenal experience and the special sense of self-reflexive awareness.
Again, I do not have such a function. But I am nevertheless sure that it exists ie I am certain that we could (and will), given enough time and resources design a conscious computer.