Religion and Ethics Forum
Religion and Ethics Discussion => Philosophy, in all its guises. => Topic started by: Sriram on May 22, 2023, 07:59:33 AM
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Hi everyone,
According to some spiritual philosophies initiated and corroborated by experiences of spiritual practitioners, yogis and mystics....we have two parts to our self.
One part is what we normally see as the conscious self that we identify as ourselves...the ego self. The other part is the inner self that remains hidden but guides and navigates our lives in subtle ways.
The first part focuses on the life here and now in the material world....while the inner self focuses on our inner development.
The amount of influence and control that the inner self exercises on the ego self depends on ones level of spiritual development. All humans are not equal in spiritual development which is why we have Hitlers and Gandhis ....evil and saintly people....and lots of people at various levels in between.
The idea is to develop over several reincarnations such that the inner self and the outer ego self merge and unite.
It is the inner self and its subtle influences that are often seen as a personal God and his guidance. Some philosophies identify the inner self itself as the Universal spirit while other philosophies treat them as separate.
Just some thoughts.
Cheers.
Sriram
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The idea is to develop over several reincarnations such that the inner self and the outer ego self merge and unite.
How does that work in practice?
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How does that work in practice?
I don't know what you mean. If you are asking for detailed mechanisms, I have no idea.
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I don't know what you mean. If you are asking for detailed mechanisms, I have no idea.
Speculate, hypothesise then?
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I cannot speculate on mechanisms when the details are not known. I am not sure if we are even capable of understanding the mechanisms.
Secondly, I am not concerned about mechanisms at all. Just as we eat and walk and talk and sleep without worrying about the mechanisms, so also I am more concerned about the experiencing of life rather than its mechanisms.
I am more concerned about the meaning and purpose of life.
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Sriram,
I am more concerned about the meaning and purpose of life.
What makes you think that life has meaning and purpose?
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I believe there is a meaning and purpose to life and that is what our spiritual philosophies are all about.
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Sriram,
I believe there is a meaning and purpose to life and that is what our spiritual philosophies are all about.
Yes, I know what you think – the question though was why you think it (aside that is perhaps from a heady dose of solipsistic wishful thinking).
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I cannot possibly explain that to you. As I have said many times, one just has to see it. If not ....no!
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I cannot possibly explain that to you. As I have said many times, one just has to see it. If not ....no!
So no reason, then. A cause, certainly, but not reason, not a rationale, just 'a feeling'.
You'll appreciate, I'm sure, why your potentially hallucinatory sense of something is an insufficient basis for someone else to accept the proposition?
O.
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Sriram,
I cannot possibly explain that to you. As I have said many times, one just has to see it. If not ....no!
And that statement could be distinguished from that of someone who's entirely mistaken or delusional how would you say?
When you can't justify your claims even to yourself, you have no means to know whether you've actually "seen" something or just imagined it.
Try to remember this.
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I cannot possibly explain that to you. As I have said many times, one just has to see it. If not ....no!
That's an interesting answer. Have you never even wondered, felt any curiosity about this? You must have noticed that not everyone sees things the same way you do. Have you always just assumed they are blind because they don't 'see it' like you? Perhaps they see something you miss and therefore don't feel the need to fill that absence with 'meaning and purpose'.
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We have discussed this several times. It is about ones experience. People who have not had the experience may doubt it and assume that it is this or that. That cannot be helped. This argument has been going on for centuries.
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Sriram,
We have discussed this several times. It is about ones experience. People who have not had the experience may doubt it and assume that it is this or that. That cannot be helped. This argument has been going on for centuries.
Try to understand something here: the narratives we create to explain our experiences need not be accurate.
We all have “experiences”, but to make sense of them we can only use the reason and evidence available to us to create persuasive stories to explain them. I might for example think I’ve experienced fairies dancing at the bottom of my garden, whereas someone else might conclude that it’s more likely an illusion caused by moonlight flickering through the reeds.
Your equivalent example is that you’ve managed to convince yourself that you have magic spectacles that permit you to see things that other people cannot see. That’s the narrative you find persuasive. Right off the bat though I can think of several alternative and known explanations for your experiences that could be more accurate than the story you’ve told yourself about them.
Does that necessarily mean that my fairies story and your seeing patterns, divining purpose etc stories are therefore wrong? No it doesn’t – what it does mean though is that more probable explanations are available to each of us. I accept the more probable explanations; you on the other hand reject them out of hand.
Why?
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Relax Blue...! You are really getting frantic about this.
You have no way of knowing what I am talking about....so please stop trying to convince me that I am delusional and imagining things.
I am not trying to convince you about my experiences or to convert you into my way of thinking. So you don't have to panic.
I am merely posting my thoughts for those who may be able to relate to it. You atheists are not the only members on the board you know!
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Sriram,
Relax Blue...! You are really getting frantic about this.
There’s nothing remotely unrelaxed or frantic about calmly dismantling your efforts here.
You have no way of knowing what I am talking about....
Yes I have. What you’re talking about is experiences you’ve had, and to which you’ve then attached explanatory narratives you find persuasive.
…so please stop trying to convince me that I am delusional and imagining things.
I’m not trying to convince you of anything – I’m just explaining to you why the explanatory narratives you attempt are poorly reasoned (or not reasoned at all).
I am not trying to convince you about my experiences or to convert you into my way of thinking.
No-one has suggested otherwise, though your poor reasoning comes freighted with a fairly unpleasant implication that in your head at least you have perception abilities somehow superior to those of the rest of us.
So you don't have to panic.
No-one has panicked.
I am merely posting my thoughts for those who may be able to relate to it.
And I’m merely dismantling those “thoughts” as logically false (and often arrogant to boot) when you do it.
You atheists are not the only members on the board you know!
The reasoning that shows your thinking to be either absent or wrong has nothing to do with atheism.
Just out of interest, did you understand a single word of the explanation I gave you for why you cannot just assume that the experiences you have and the narratives you reach for to explain them likely don’t align?
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How can you possibly reason out on something for which you have no inputs what so ever?!
I have the inputs and I have reasoned it out quite well (to the extent possible)....thank you.
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Hi everyone,
According to some spiritual philosophies initiated and corroborated by experiences of spiritual practitioners, yogis and mystics....we have two parts to our self.
One part is what we normally see as the conscious self that we identify as ourselves...the ego self. The other part is the inner self that remains hidden but guides and navigates our lives in subtle ways.
The first part focuses on the life here and now in the material world....while the inner self focuses on our inner development.
The amount of influence and control that the inner self exercises on the ego self depends on ones level of spiritual development. All humans are not equal in spiritual development which is why we have Hitlers and Gandhis ....evil and saintly people....and lots of people at various levels in between.
The idea is to develop over several reincarnations such that the inner self and the outer ego self merge and unite.
It is the inner self and its subtle influences that are often seen as a personal God and his guidance. Some philosophies identify the inner self itself as the Universal spirit while other philosophies treat them as separate.
Just some thoughts.
Cheers.
Sriram
Once the Inner Self is identified and brought closer...life changes remarkably. Priorities change and life becomes so much easier. A different world.
Nothing else is worth pursuing.
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How can you possibly reason out on something for which you have no inputs what so ever?!
I have the inputs and I have reasoned it out quite well (to the extent possible)....thank you.
Your experiences are not an input, they are an output - you are presuming that your interpretation which produces the output gives you an accurate assessment of the input, but prior experimental evidence on human experience and the inconsistent response of people to, presumably, the same stimuli calls that into question.
O.
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Your experiences are not an input, they are an output - you are presuming that your interpretation which produces the output gives you an accurate assessment of the input, but prior experimental evidence on human experience and the inconsistent response of people to, presumably, the same stimuli calls that into question.
O.
The same old....it may not be what you think it is....argument. ::)
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The same old....it may not be what you think it is....argument. ::)
If you keep posting the same unsubstantiated assertions without changing the basis on which they've already been questioned, why would you expect different arguments? They were valid before, as is evidenced by your abject failure to address them yet again, and they're equally as valid now.
O.
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No...they are not valid because you have no basis on which you can comment or pass a judgement.
Merely dubbing some experience as delusion or imagination is not a valid argument. It is just an opinion which is neither here nor there.
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No...they are not valid because you have no basis on which you can comment or pass a judgement.
Merely dubbing some experience as delusion or imagination is not a valid argument. It is just an opinion which is neither here nor there.
Right back at you.
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Sriram,
How can you possibly reason out on something for which you have no inputs what so ever?!
Easily, because I do have the “inputs”. Those inputs are the (occasional) arguments you attempt to justify the explanatory narratives you claim for you experiences, which are always wrong. They’re wrong because they rely on various fallacies – albeit that you just ignore that problem when it’s shown to you.
Your mistake here is that you’re still assuming the experience and your explanation for it are the aligned, when they’re quite likely not. See if this helps: a while ago a friend of mine experienced awful chest pains in the night and so convinced himself that he’d had a heart attack. After a bunch of tests though he was told that in fact he’d had severe indigestion, and there was no heart abnormality at all.
What can you learn from this? You can learn that even though there was only one experience (ie chest pain) more robust reasoning and evidence than he initially reached for gave him a very different explanation for it. This is essentially what you do – you have experiences, and then apply lousy reasoning to obtain your explanations for them. More robust reasoning on the other hand tells us that your reasoning is wrong, so you have no worthwhile argument to support your explanatory claims – they’re just unqualified guesses.
I have the inputs and I have reasoned it out quite well (to the extent possible)....thank you.
No you haven’t. You have experiences (as did my friend), but your reasoning to justify your explanations for them is appalling. Your problem though is that rather than address why it’s appalling when it’s explained to you you always run away.
What does this say about you do you think?
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Sriram,
No...they are not valid because you have no basis on which you can comment or pass a judgement.
Yes he has. He can evaluate the arguments you attempt to justify the explanations you claim, and find them wanting.
Merely dubbing some experience as delusion or imagination is not a valid argument. It is just an opinion which is neither here nor there.
And that’s another fallacy – called a straw man. No-one here is “Merely dubbing some experience as delusion or imagination” at all. What they’re actually doing is falsifying the arguments you attempt to justify the explanations you claim for you experiences.
Does that mean that those explanations are necessarily wring? No – after all, a stopped clock is right twice a day after all. What it does mean though is that you have no firm basis to think they’re right either.
Try to understand this.
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No...they are not valid because you have no basis on which you can comment or pass a judgement.
You mean I don't have access to the masses of well-established science that shows human senses are fallible, human memory is fallible and human interpretation of sensory inputs has any number of well-established flaws. You mean apart from that I don't have a basis?
How about just the fact that hallucinations are a demonstrable fact?
Merely dubbing some experience as delusion or imagination is not a valid argument.
You're right, which is just one of the reasons I'm not doing it. I'm saying that, because you don't have any means to demonstrate that your experiences are an accurate interpretation of what actually happened, I don't have a solid basis to assume that your claim overrides the established science.
It is just an opinion which is neither here nor there.
Which is exactly the point - your commentary is, equally, 'just an opinion', but the difference is that your opinion is at odds with the established take of the single most successful methodology for examining the real world that humanity has produced, whilst mine is not.
Which is the long version of 'I don't accept your claims of woo'.
O.
[/quote]
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I am having an opinion about my own experience, not someone else's. You are passing a judgement on my experiences with no clue at all about what it is.
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I am having an opinion about my own experience, not someone else's. You are passing a judgement on my experiences with no clue at all about what it is.
That's the problem with sharing uncommon experiences. If you want to express an opinion in words to somebody who has not had that experience, you will probably have to use an analogy, hoping that they will understand the analogy and have experienced its content. The alternative is to give them a method to enable them to have the same experience. Even then, you cannot be sure that their opinion will be identical to yours.
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Sriram,
I am having an opinion about my own experience, not someone else's. You are passing a judgement on my experiences with no clue at all about what it is.
Why are you still failing to understand the very simple point that’s being explained to you here? Once again: no-one is “passing judgement” on your experiences. No-one much cares about your experiences.
What people are actually “passing judgment” on though (ie, critiqueing) is the reasoning you attempt to explain those experiences.
As, predictably, you just ignored the analogy I gave you let’s try it again shall we? My friend’s doctor didn’t pass judgement on his account of severe chest pain either. What he did though pass judgement on was my friend’s diagnosis of its cause (ie, a heart attack) because that doctor had more robust tools at his disposal to diagnose it accurately.
Please tell me that you understand now the difference between an experience and the reasoning attempted to explain it.
Please?
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That's the problem with sharing uncommon experiences. If you want to express an opinion in words to somebody who has not had that experience, you will probably have to use an analogy, hoping that they will understand the analogy and have experienced its content. The alternative is to give them a method to enable them to have the same experience. Even then, you cannot be sure that their opinion will be identical to yours.
The problem is that I am trying to communicate with people who have had similar experiences and are able to understand what I am talking about.....but responses are always from people who have no clue about any of this but nevertheless want to pass judgement.
But it helps pass time.... so it is ok... :D
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Sriram,
Why are you still failing to understand the very simple point that’s being explained to you here? Once again: no-one is “passing judgement” on your experiences. No-one much cares about your experiences.
What people are actually “passing judgment” on though (ie, critiqueing) is the reasoning you attempt to explain those experiences.
As, predictably, you just ignored the analogy I gave you let’s try it again shall we? My friend’s doctor didn’t pass judgement on his account of severe chest pain either. What he did though pass judgement on was my friend’s diagnosis of its cause (ie, a heart attack) because that doctor had more robust tools at his disposal to diagnose it accurately.
Please tell me that you understand now the difference between an experience and the reasoning attempted to explain it.
Please?
Blue...how the heck would you know whether I am having a heart attack or a digestion problem?! How do you think you are competent to tell me what it really is and what it isn't?
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Blue...how the heck would you know whether I am having a heart attack or a digestion problem?! How do you think you are competent to tell me what it really is and what it isn't?
I don't think Blue was saying anything of the kind. I suggest you read his post again. The doctor used the tools at his disposal to diagnose the cause of the chest pain, rather than relying on the assumption made by the patient.
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Sriram,
Blue...how the heck would you know whether I am having a heart attack or a digestion problem?! How do you think you are competent to tell me what it really is and what it isn't?
I said no such thing. What I said was that a doctor was able to look at my friend’s reasoning that led him to conclude that he’d had a heart attack and thereby to find that reasoning to be false (and the doctor's reasoning to the correct diagnosis to be not false). Similarly I can look at your reasoning that leads you to reach the conclusions you reach and find that reasoning to be false too (because it relies on various fallacies).
You’re still failing here to grasp that an experience and the reasoning attempted to explain it are two different matters.
Why?
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Ha.Ha!
And you consider yourself as some kind of a doctor (expert) who is able to deduce from what I am saying as to what experience I actually had?!!
I am basing my ideas on a lifetime of experiences, not one occasion of good feeling. You really are presumptuous!
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People have experiences. they interpret them based on their world view. It doesn't mean that their interpretation is correct.
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I am having an opinion about my own experience, not someone else's. You are passing a judgement on my experiences with no clue at all about what it is.
The only 'judgement' I'm passing on your experience is that you are exactly as human as anyone else, and therefore if you've experienced something that defies conventional understanding then you need to be at least open to the possibility that your experience is not accurate, and more importantly you have to accept that all the protestations you can muster won't stop us at least considering it.
However, you're not merely stating an opinion, you're castigating an entire field of eminent scientists and their body of work, you're making claims about the nature of reality that aren't substantiated and then expecting everyone to just accept your claim because we shouldn't be listening to experts we should be listening to your 'opinion'...
O.
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The only 'judgement' I'm passing on your experience is that you are exactly as human as anyone else, and therefore if you've experienced something that defies conventional understanding then you need to be at least open to the possibility that your experience is not accurate, and more importantly you have to accept that all the protestations you can muster won't stop us at least considering it.
However, you're not merely stating an opinion, you're castigating an entire field of eminent scientists and their body of work, you're making claims about the nature of reality that aren't substantiated and then expecting everyone to just accept your claim because we shouldn't be listening to experts we should be listening to your 'opinion'...
O.
Not at all. I am not castigating any scientist or his understanding of his field of inquiry. In fact I am not questioning any established scientific theory at all.
In fact, you people are questioning my experiences and my ideas about them, with absolutely no clue as to what i am talking about ....even though it does not contradict any established theory of science.
It shows a deep insecurity and fear (the God phobia) born of anti religious sentiment.....even though what I say has nothing to do with religions.
But I don't blame you. These ideas take several generations to be understood and accepted. You people still seem to be in the 'science vs religion' stage of cultural development. Your grandchildren would probably understand.
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People have experiences. they interpret them based on their world view. It doesn't mean that their interpretation is correct.
:D
You have been beating the 'interpretation' drum for many years now Maeght. And you seem to think that your interpretation should be the one acceptable to all.... ::)
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:D
You have been beating the 'interpretation' drum for many years now Maeght. And you seem to think that your interpretation should be the one acceptable to all.... ::)
Again, not what the poster said.
Why d you insist on misrepresenting others instead of explaining your position more clearly.
Cue the "if you don't have the kind of mind to understand it, you'll never understand it" card being played.
Which as well as being patronising, gets the discussion absolutely nowhere.
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Sriram,
Ha.Ha!
And you consider yourself as some kind of a doctor (expert) who is able to deduce from what I am saying as to what experience I actually had?!!
Why do you insist on misrepresenting what’s actually being said to you?
First, yes I am the “doctor” in this analogy inasmuch only that I can spot (and explain to you) the fallacies you rely on when you try to rationalise your way from your experience to its explanation.
Second, the “experience you actually had” is one thing but the explanation for it that you attempt is another thing entirely. I (and others here) have commented only on the latter, which you consistently base on false resoning.
I am basing my ideas on a lifetime of experiences, not one occasion of good feeling. You really are presumptuous!
If ever I commented on your experiences and didn’t confine myself just to the lousy reasoning you try to explain them I probably would be, yes – just a the doctor would have been if he’d dismissed my friend’s account of chest pain. Fortunately for me I haven’t done that though (just a the doctor didn’t), so your charge is wrong.
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Sriram,
You have been beating the 'interpretation' drum for many years now Maeght. And you seem to think that your interpretation should be the one acceptable to all....
Wrong again. All Maeght and others explain to you is that the interpretation that rests on cogent reasoning is more likely sound than the interpretation that rests of wrong reasoning.
Try to understand this.
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:D
You have been beating the 'interpretation' drum for many years now Maeght. And you seem to think that your interpretation should be the one acceptable to all.... ::)
Nope.
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Sriram,
Not at all. I am not castigating any scientist or his understanding of his field of inquiry. In fact I am not questioning any established scientific theory at all.
Yes you are – the Theory of Evolution for starters.
In fact, you people are questioning my experiences and my ideas about them, with absolutely no clue as to what i am talking about ....even though it does not contradict any established theory of science.
What your “ideas about them” “contradict” is reason and logic, for the reasons that keep being shown to you and you routinely ignore.
It shows a deep insecurity and fear (the God phobia) born of anti religious sentiment.....even though what I say has nothing to do with religions.
Paranoid nonsense. What it actually shows is just that some people are better able to construct logically cogent arguments than you are.
But I don't blame you. These ideas take several generations to be understood and accepted. You people still seem to be in the 'science vs religion' stage of cultural development. Your grandchildren would probably understand.
Utter bullshit. “We people” understand your “ideas”, but don’t accept them because they're wrong.
How do we know they’re wrong? We know they’re wrong because the reasoning you attempt to justify them is wrong. Simple really.
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:D :D
This is funny. You have no idea of my experiences. You admit to that and you say that you are not commenting on them. OK fine.
You nevertheless keep saying that my ideas are wrong. My ideas are however based on my experiences (over a life time). Now....how the heck could you or anyone else possibly know that my ideas (or interpretations) are wrong when you have no clue about my experiences?
If my ideas contradicted some established theory of science, you might perhaps have a case. But when that is not the case, how can you possibly know that my ideas are wrong? It is obviously wishful thinking on your part born of a deep rooted fear of religious teachings and of what you call the supernatural.
i am quite clear on that.
Get used to it guys. There is lots more to life than just the physical world. Nothing to fear! Its all great fun actually....really. And you don't even need religions.
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Its all great fun actually....really.
Yes, you sound like you're having a ball, Sriram.
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Sriram,
This is funny. You have no idea of my experiences. You admit to that and you say that you are not commenting on them. OK fine.
Could that be the first hint of progress here?
You nevertheless keep saying that my ideas are wrong.
Yes.
My ideas are however based on my experiences (over a life time).
“…based on” – yes, just as my friend’s idea of a heart attack was based on his experience too. Keep going…
Now....how the heck could you or anyone else possibly know that my ideas (or interpretations) are wrong when you have no clue about my experiences?
Aw no – you were doing so well for a while there too. We know that your ideas are wrong when you attempt to reason them out and the reasons are false – as they always are. That’s why the doctor came up with a more accurate diagnosis than my friend – the experience of chest pain wasn’t challenged, but the reasoning my friend used to justify his idea “heart attack” was demonstrated to be wrong.
If my ideas contradicted some established theory of science, you might perhaps have a case. But when that is not the case, how can you possibly know that my ideas are wrong?
Actually they do often contradict the science, but you have a more serious problem than that to address (not that you ever will though) – namely that they “contradict" reason and logic too.
It is obviously wishful thinking on your part...
You're accusing someone else of wishful thinking? The irony!
...born of a deep rooted fear of religious teachings and of what you call the supernatural.
Your paranoia is showing here. It’s no such thing. What it actually is is just the simple matter of identifying the various fallacies on which your reasoning to explain your experiences relies.
i am quite clear on that.
You are quite clearly wrong on that.
Get used to it guys. There is lots more to life than just the physical world.
Can you justify that statement without relying on various fallacious arguments?
Nothing to fear!
Nothing to take seriously.
Its all great fun actually....really. And you don't even need religions.
Why do you find being lost in a world of irrationality to be “great fun”?
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Oh ...my...my! Is this so difficult?!
When you don't even know whether I am having chest pain or a headache or a pain in my leg....how the heck can you deduce what it is?
You should at least know what experiences I have had..... ??? ::) ::)
Really....Blue!!
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Sriram,
Oh ...my...my! Is this so difficult?!
For you? Apparently yes.
When you don't even know whether I am having chest pain or a headache or a pain in my leg....how the heck can you deduce what it is?
Easily because I can examine the reasoning you try to diagnose the cause and find it to be either sound or not sound. Just as the doctor did with my friend.
You should at least know what experiences I have had.....
No need. All I actually need to know is whether or not your reasoning to explain your experiences is sound or not sound. So far none of it has been sound (because it always relies on one or several fallacious arguments).
Really....Blue!!
Right back acha.
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Ok...I give up. Have fun!
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Sriram,
Ok...I give up. Have fun!
Yes, as ever you just bail out when you run out of road rather than try at least to engage with what's actually explained to you. Why do you behave like this?
For what it's worth, your problem here is still that you're unable it seems to distinguish between an experience and an explanation for it.
There's a saying: "the map is not the terrain". Does that help you at all?
Anything?
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Not at all. I am not castigating any scientist or his understanding of his field of inquiry. In fact I am not questioning any established scientific theory at all.
You manifestly are.
In fact, you people are questioning my experiences and my ideas about them, with absolutely no clue as to what i am talking about ....even though it does not contradict any established theory of science.
I'm not questioning your experiences, but I very definitely am suggesting that there are valid questions relating to your ideas about those experiences, and on what basis you presume they are sufficient to overturn decades, if not centuries, of well evidenced research and observation.
It shows a deep insecurity and fear (the God phobia) born of anti religious sentiment.....even though what I say has nothing to do with religions.
If what you're saying has nothing to do with gods, how is my objecting to your mischaracterising science, individual scientific discoveries and the validity of your own belief system 'god-phobia'?
But I don't blame you.
That's very big of you. I can't say the same, given how often they've been pointed out to you, the errors in your continued peddling of this nonsense have be placed squarely on your shoulders.
These ideas take several generations to be understood and accepted.
No. Ideas do not get better because they get older, they get better if they get more evidence to support them.
You people still seem to be in the 'science vs religion' stage of cultural development.
Nobody, except you, is talking about religion. You're claiming science but not practicing it; if you want to make fact claims about how the world works you either need to provide information that fits into the scientific framework, or you need to provide an equally valid alternative framework. Instead you make assertions and claim you're at some hyper-advanced level of understanding that the rest of humanity doesn't have some intrinsic sensory capacity to see. You might be correct, but you're not providing anyone with sufficient basis to think that's the case.
Your grandchildren would probably understand.
I understand. I just don't agree, and I'm not prepared to substitute belief for agreement.
O.
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No...I am not questioning any established theory of science. I am making a philosophical point about the inner self....which only tries to address different aspects of reality....such as our mind and consciousness.