Donald Trump - MAGAtwat news and discussion

[BigMoaner]

Thing is that we all effectively operate according to a heuristic that is inherently dualistic, namely one that talks of agents with free will.

Even if we know deep down that the agents are constructions and free will is a bad concept, we all do it. As Daniel Dennett pointed out, there isn't really any other way to operate. Dennett was a monist in theory, but a dualist in everyday practice. Is anyone a monist in everyday practice? It's hard. Maybe a hardcore Buddhist monk?

“Samsara (world of forms and dualities) and Nirvana (the absoloute/void) are the same” to quote some old Zen wanker. It’s the tightest ontological claim I can see available to us, without perhaps the curative fantasy of ever lasting bliss (nirvana). Miya is another one isn’t it, the veil within everything (forms) that is one with the “void/brahman/absolute/God”

And yes no other way to act. Blissed out nondualists in whatever tradition can be the worst. But it’s good also that some do it. The bodhisattva is a nice metaphor though, “one who has come back”

 

[BigMoaner]

I think that the problem with this, BM, is that you fall into a content/process duality, which takes you back to the same mind/body dualism that infects so much modern psychology.

How about…the only thing that separates me from the external world is thought, thinking I am a here and that is there. But then I would say thought itself is not separate either.

 

[Coffeecup]

We might all be in the Truman show. Who can say otherwise? Are we in the Matrix? There are all sorts of beliefs and besides that we are told we have free will. But are we told that has a price either negative or positive?

The Buddha said the middle road is the right way. Trump says he’s a Christian, but also said, who believes this shit?

Is Trump evil or just a dipstick plonker?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

How about…the only thing that separates me from the external world is thought, thinking I am a here and that is there. But then I would say thought itself is not separate either.

I come at this from a slightly different direction. The conscious representation that constitutes the content of my experience is a construct, and that includes the sense that there is a 'me' and a 'not me'; the sense that there is a 'me' at all doing this experiencing is just as constructed as everything else.

Different ways of saying the same kinds of thing, I suspect. It interests me how Buddhists and philosophers of science can end up at the same place via very different paths.

 

[Santino]

Who is sensing the sense of being 'me'?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Who is sensing the sense of being 'me'?

the sense of being 'me in this world' exists. That's all we can say. But where does it exist, except in our memory? What is conscious representation other than the first layer of memory? We're always strictly speaking looking at the past while attempting to predict the future (the minimising free energy idea of consciousness).

The ways in which this can go wrong (wrong in the sense of not being functional) is instructive, I think. People feeling that they have no free will or that their decisions are being made for them by an alien. Or the Jaynes idea that there is more than one 'me' going on at the same time, which is a reasonable way to interpret the hearing of voices. Or split brains in which there appear to all intents and purposes to be two 'me's in there.

 

[Santino]

the sense of being 'me in this world' exists. That's all we can say.

The ways in which this can go wrong (wrong in the sense of not being functional) is instructive, I think. People feeling that they have no free will or that their decisions are being made for them by an alien. Or the Jaynes idea that there is more than one 'me' going on at the same time, which is a reasonable way to interpret the hearing of voices. Or split brains in which there appear to all intents and purposes to be two 'me's in there.

I would say that the grammar of the concept of 'sensing' demands that there be someone to sense it.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I would say that the grammar of the concept of 'sensing' demands that there be someone to sense it.

And hey presto, said senser is constructed to complete the picture!

 

[Santino]

Or rather, that there being a sensing is sufficient for there to be someone sensing it. Sensing IS being a 'me', it's not something that happens to a pre-existing entity.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I don't think the existence of consciousness is conclusive evidence of dualism.

 

[Santino]

Neither do I.

 

[Santino]

Or me.

 

[emanymton]

The me is just the brain, what I experience as conscious thought is just a side effect or how my brain happens to deal with it's day to day functions.

Someone with no inner monologue has a very different experience to me. But we are both equally as conscious.

 

[Skinny Ethel]

Mmm interesting thoughts.

 

[Rompipalle]

It is at this point that “I like cheese” is required

 

[BigMoaner]

Who is sensing the sense of being 'me'?

I would say that the grammar of the concept of 'sensing' demands that there be someone to sense it.

But that sense qualitively is something like a thought, or a sensation, which certainly isn't a "self". if i observe a thought, the observer is really just another thought, or sensation. A zen master put it this way: "conciousness - give it back, it's not yours!" which begs the question, give it back to what? The void? yes, in my view. Absoloute nothingness.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

I find a lot of philosophical skepticism pretty uninteresting to be honest, including skepticism about the 'self'. Sure, we are biological organisms who have consciousness, self-awareness, memory, plans for the future and various beliefs, behaviours, dispositions, preferences and attitudes that have relative stability over time etc but the Buddhists and the Humeans think this isn't enough for the existence of selves for some reason. I presume this is because they and other skeptics have some unreasonably high bar for what constitutes the self, one that nobody who talks about the self on a day-to-day basis thinks is part of the concept they're using. As with many areas of philosophy, common sense, pre-reflective ideas of the self are a better guide to whether they exist than some technical philosophical argument.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I find a lot of philosophical skepticism pretty uninteresting to be honest, including skepticism about the 'self'. Sure, we are biological organisms who have consciousness, self-awareness, memory, plans for the future and various beliefs, behaviours, dispositions, preferences and attitudes that have relative stability over time etc but the Buddhists and the Humeans think this isn't enough for the existence of selves for some reason. I presume this is because they and other skeptics have some unreasonably high bar for what constitutes the self, one that nobody who talks about the self on a day-to-day basis thinks is part of the concept they're using. As with many areas of philosophy, common sense, pre-reflective ideas of the self are a better guide to whether they exist than some technical philosophical argument.

You are the Antibuddha!

tbf I also don't think this consideration is particularly relevant to this particular topic - the dualism heuristic is mostly good enough for these purposes. However, if, for example, you're trying to understand how it is that minds go wrong, you need to think about what minds are.

 

[BigMoaner]

I come at this from a slightly different direction. The conscious representation that constitutes the content of my experience is a construct, and that includes the sense that there is a 'me' and a 'not me'; the sense that there is a 'me' at all doing this experiencing is just as constructed as everything else.

Different ways of saying the same kinds of thing, I suspect. It interests me how Buddhists and philosophers of science can end up at the same place via very different paths.

Yes. fully with you. that's where i arrive at, too.

That sentance by Heidegger really does have it all in my view. "we don't come to thought, thought comes to us." and he doesn't mean just some thought, or just special ones, or just "I" ones, he means all of them, ever. But then if you look back at the sentance "We" and "us", he is bascially saying that those constructs are arrivals too, and don't come from central points of inner causation. Buddha put it “there are good and bad deeds done in the world, but no one doing them”

 

[Dogsauce]

Probably just because it was mildly amusing to interpret his words as such. In fact "bigly" is apparently an archaic word but Trump did not know that. He was actually saying "big league" but that is a phrase with which many non-Americans may not be familiar so it was heard as "bigly".

He does, however, have something of a track record for mispronunciation and malapropism... as well as making up words of his own.

Similar with the ‘Muslamic Rayguns’ thing. We all know what the spannered bloke was saying, but it just became something to mock them / the far right generally with.

 

[BigMoaner]

I find a lot of philosophical skepticism pretty uninteresting to be honest, including skepticism about the 'self'. Sure, we are biological organisms who have consciousness, self-awareness, memory, plans for the future and various beliefs, behaviours, dispositions, preferences and attitudes that have relative stability over time etc but the Buddhists and the Humeans think this isn't enough for the existence of selves for some reason. I presume this is because they and other skeptics have some unreasonably high bar for what constitutes the self, one that nobody who talks about the self on a day-to-day basis thinks is part of the concept they're using. As with many areas of philosophy, common sense, pre-reflective ideas of the self are a better guide to whether they exist than some technical philosophical argument.

any buddhist worth listening to will also have a very common sense intuitive notion of the self. largely because that cannot be escaped, impossible to transcend. the point is to not realise "non self" and then stay there in ever lasting bliss, but to fuse the self with other unanswerable questions, and this can only be done by shattering a certain rigid duality. it's not just the buddhists too, a lot of the eastern ways are designed for the same - taoism, vedanta, etc. where these modes of philosophy can be particualy interesting beyond just personal practice is that they can give insight into the way the self is constructed today, the modern internal monologues, the modern attachments, worries, etc.

 

[Santino]

Similar with the ‘Muslamic Rayguns’ thing. We all know what the spannered bloke was saying, but it just became something to mock them / the far right generally with.

I wonder if any right-wing people view some of the false things they say in the same way.

 

[BigMoaner]

old jd krishnimurti puts it beautifully. i disagree with him that it's teh answer to everything though, like some miracle cure.

 

[Coffeecup]

If anyone is interested in the here and now, there are books that can be read.

Madame Blavatsky and Alice Bailey for curiosity. Long reads. Probably months. Take it or leave it.

 

[Coffeecup]

old jd krishnimurti puts it beautifully. i disagree with him that it's teh answer to everything though, like some miracle cure.

His lectures were mainly about going beyond thought which is not easy for the common man.

 

[Dillinger4]

I come at this from a slightly different direction. The conscious representation that constitutes the content of my experience is a construct, and that includes the sense that there is a 'me' and a 'not me'; the sense that there is a 'me' at all doing this experiencing is just as constructed as everything else.

Different ways of saying the same kinds of thing, I suspect. It interests me how Buddhists and philosophers of science can end up at the same place via very different paths.

That interests me as well.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

old jd krishnimurti puts it beautifully. i disagree with him that it's teh answer to everything though, like some miracle cure.

'with no fear, you are free'

Either that or you are run over by the 5:15 to Basingstoke...

 

[BigMoaner]

'with no fear, you are free'

Either that or you are run over by the 5:15 to Basingstoke...

next time you're in the unlikely situation of meeting a buddhist who says he lives in constant no-self land, then ask him to give you all his life savings, see how well that goes down. or kick him in the shin

 

[Rompipalle]

Similar with the ‘Muslamic Rayguns’ thing. We all know what the spannered bloke was saying, but it just became something to mock them / the far right generally with.

I’ve only mocked Trump in relation to the “bigly” thing. It was nothing to do with anyone else.

 

[BigMoaner]

the Zen philosophers were the best at these questions though, imo. They refused transcendance. Some of the stuff written in Zen and the Mahayana tradition in general is some of the most mind melting shit to grace teh planet imo. thankful that it's there to dip into and practice. though i don't really take it too seriously, which they would very much say is the right approach.