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Meaning of 'Consciousness is One'

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Namaste Sri Benjamin,

 

I would like to mention a few points I came across. Firstly, I am in the same

boat as you are. Striving to understand what all this is ( or maybe I should say

trying to find out who am I ... and I am still on the first step I guess). Your

points have been very helpful and some of my unasked questions have been

answered along the way. But I have to admit, I got lost frequently in all the

logic you have gone through.

 

Why is consciousness only one ?

 

That which is infinite cannot be subdivided. Because it is infinity. How is it

infinite ? Why do we say that ? Firstly Vedanta ( all schools ) say that the

Atman is never created nor destroyed. So birth and death is not for the Atman.

This being accepted,implies that time is not for the Atman. Anything that is not

subject to time must be infinite. Swami Vivekananda had presented this argument.

So if we believe this to be true, the Atman is only one. This is only a small

argument. But I found this very powerful one to disprove.

 

" After all, how can God be ignorant, and we are

ignorant, aren't we? "

 

In my understanding consciousness is only one attribute of the Atman (

Existence-Consciousness- Bliss ). But the true nature of the Atman is Nirguna.

Though I have no clue how such a state can be imagined, this seems to be the

state where all creation is stopped. Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa describes

Nirvikalpa Samadhi to be a state of no return for ordinary mortals. A state of

nothingness which seems to get kind of the same description by J. Krishnamurti,

Ramana Maharishi and Buddha. So this state has neither God nor man. God,

Ignorance are all creation of the mind and hence false. ( Incidentally, about a

month ago it was reported in the papers that a Jain Swami had passed off this

world in his meditation. Seems he had been wanting to do this for a while )

 

Ramana Maharishi questions people who ask this to find out to whom is the

ignorance. In the course he says that we will find that the 'I' is not there ,

and since there is no 'I', there is no ignorance. On a lighter note, it is said

that even the Gods have to be born as humans and attain moksha. They have to

come down from their lokas to dwell as humans in booloka after their good karma

is exhausted. so why can't God be ignorant ?

 

pain and pleasure....

 

You say that pain faced by another person is not felt by you. Actually, there

are some incidents reported that denies this. Sri Ramakrishna had felt the blows

that were dealt on somebody in the waterfront. It is mentioned about stigmata

wounds where people get the wounds of Christ.

 

Om Tat Sat

 

Guru Venkat

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Dear Benjamin-ji,

 

It doesn't matter if my name is TKB or Benjaminji,

right ? :-)

Or if I live in Kerala or not.

 

Well, Thank You anyway.

It is not as dramatic as that.

You just seemed to be having, the same problem I had.

 

We both might have caught hold of the tail.

 

http://www.noogenesis.com/pineapple/blind_men_elephant.html

 

unlike the blind men,We have decided to sit down, and

discuss calmly about the Elephant.

 

Now we are slowly seeing, more of the elephant.

 

Regards

TKB

 

--- Benjamin Root <orion777ben wrote:

>

> SECOND REPLY TO SRI TKB (15996):

> Dear TKBji,

>

> I should have taken your advice and pondered your

> words for longer

> before replying the first time. I now realize that

> they have much

> deeper implications than I at first realized. Why

> do you hide behind

> the mysterious initials TKB? All I can tell about

> you on the

> Advaitin List is that you are from Kerala. I know

> some nice people

> from Kerala who are now U.S. citizens. Shankara was

> from Kerala,

> wasn't he? Maybe there is something about Kerala.

> I know that it is

> a very green and beautiful place.

>

> Anyhow, I now realize that my 'humble' admission

> that I do not know

> the whole of my mind has very profound implications.

> It may vitiate

> my whole argument against matter, which seemed to me

> like such a

> promising first step towards understanding Advaita.

> For in my

> argument against matter, I took the scientists at

> their word, who say

> that we should only believe what we experience.

> (For example, many

> hard-headed scientists would say that we do not

> experience 'God', so

> we should not believe in God, at least not as

> scientists.) Well,

> this same skepticism can be used against matter. We

> have never

> experienced so-called 'matter' but only the

> perceptions that we

> falsely assume are produced by matter. So, on the

> basis of Ockham's

> razor, I eliminated matter and explained the 'world'

> as a sequences

> of perceptions in our respective streams of

> consciousness that are

> 'miraculously' coordinated by the laws of physics

> (which are

> ultimately the laws of God). (By the way, 'Ockham's

> razor' is a

> famous principle of Western philosophy that says,

> roughly, that the

> simplest and most streamlined theory that explains

> the facts is the

> one we should use. Since the hypothesis of matter

> is unnecessary and

> unverifiable, it should therefore be eliminated.)

>

> Well, then, by this principle, am I not forced to

> admit that whatever

> is present to my immediate awareness at this very

> moment is in fact

> all I know or can know about my mind at this

> immediate moment? This

> would seem foolish and presumptuous. I would much

> prefer to believe

> that what I am aware of now in my consciousness

> barely scratches the

> surface of an 'ocean of infinity and divinity'. But

> then, am I not

> unjustifiably postulating something of which I am

> unaware, just as we

> normally do for matter?

>

> One answer would be that the deeper divine nature of

> our

> consciousness is not present at this moment in

> 'actuality' but only

> in 'potentiality'. At this very moment, my

> consciousness is only

> what I am aware of and no more. But I have faith

> that it is

> developing towards higher and higher states of

> consciousness. But

> until these higher states are actually realized, I

> should not say

> that they are 'there' in any sense. To say that

> they are there

> 'potentially' means that they are not in fact there

> but will be one

> day in the future.

>

> But then how does this square with my belief that

> 'God' or the Pure

> Infinite Consciousness who is the Necessary and

> Ultimate Source of

> Being is the 'substratum' of my present

> consciousness? Am I not

> denying this?

>

> I could go on and on but I won't. Let me just

> reiterate an idea I

> presented before. It may be that as we rise to

> higher and higher

> levels of consciousness, our consciousness 'expands'

> in many ways.

> One of these ways is that we become more sensitive

> of other

> consciousnesses, and at some point I in fact believe

> that phenomena

> such as telepathy arise. There is evidence for

> this. What is

> obscuring our consciousness now is undoubtedly

> 'ignorance'.

>

> Now one may ask, Does this ignorance hide something

> that is there but

> that cannot be seen, just as darkness hides

> something that is

> 'there' and could be seen if only light were shining

> on it? Or does

> ignorance mean the complete absence from

> consciousness of that of

> which we are ignorant? (As a footnote, let me point

> out that there

> are two kinds of ignorance. On the one hand, there

> is the ignorance

> that superposes error upon what is before us, like

> the snake on the

> rope. And on the other hand, there is ignorance

> that sees something

> that is not there in any sense, not even as a rope.

> I am talking of

> the latter. Or am I?)

>

> Well, I'll stop here. The whole question of

> ignorance in Advaita is

> very thorny. After all, how can God be ignorant,

> and we are

> ignorant, aren't we?

>

> Still, I think that my basic principle of refusing

> to postulate an

> entity that is not immediately present in

> consciousness is highly

> reasonable, elegant, justified and altogether

> persuasive. I see no

> reason to give it up yet. But this very principle

> raised my original

> question about how your consciousness and mine can

> be equated. For

> the contents of your consciousness are not present

> in my immediate

> awareness. And now we are going around in

> circles... But our verbal

> skills are being improved.

>

> Hari Om!

> Benjamin

 

 

 

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Hello Benjamin and all Advaitins,

Just for the record to finish off my thoughts on the excerpt from the B.S.B.

When I clean it up I think I shall call it tarwater.htm .

 

Advaitic Joke: Teller to Yogi presenting a cheque: Can you identify

yourself?

Yogi whips out a mirror peers into it and says: 'Yes that's definitely me'!

 

 

 

 

text referred to can be read at

http://homepage.eircom.net/~ombhurbhuva/vijnanavada1.htm

 

Another way of putting the idea of concept acquisition and logical priority

would be the common expression - You have to learn to walk before you can

run. However a caveat must be issued here, Sankara could well be using a

coherence argument against the Buddhist. In other words he is saying 'if

all you are going on is an inner arising then certain sorts of inner

arisings must precede others'.

 

When Sankara speaks of the regularity and consistency of the world as

perceived it is to stress the independence of things. Of course when this

independence is flouted by hallucination, delusion, confusion etc. we can

check and undeceive ourselves. Dennis mentioned adhyasa in this

connection. However this regularity is not a knockdown argument against

idealism, is there any such in philosophy, but part of the 12step program

to turn that universal ball joint which is the philosphers head through

slight angles of tilt and turn. Regularity implies causality. I'm not

going out on a limb, I think, when I hold that 'this looks like a sheep'

is a more developed position than 'this is a sheep'.

 

But there is yet another argument which Sankara brings up which is

extraordinarily prescient bringing to mind that aspect of Berkeley which

has been influential for modern philosophers. I don't mean the 'no

external world' part but his account of what he called abstract ideas.

>From the beginning this area has fascinated called by whatever name -

namarupa, concepts, general ideas, abstract ideas, universals, particulars,

names. We can see the blue medicine bottle of cylindrical fluted shape.

This is an integral awareness but it has many different acts of

understanding none of which are abstracted from the sense data. This is

true particularly when it comes to what Berkeley called abstract ideas eg.

a triangle as such, not scalene etc., coloured, cowhood (Sankara's example

of genus). "Therefore an object and its knowledge differ". He gives

various examples of the complexity of the

manner in which "the mind is able in some way to become everything" (Thomas

Aquinas). It is evident that both Sankara and Berkeley regard namarupa,

concepts generally as switched on by experience. That is not to say that

they can exist separately from experience. Avidya is the switch in the

case of Advaita for Berkeley it is the existence of God "or a spirit who is

intimately present to our minds, producing in them all that variety of

ideas or sensations, which continually affect us".

 

This leads into a critique of the inability of the flow of consciousness to

refer from one cognition to any other that has passed. There is in effect

just this flux. However if one part of the flux can distinguish another

part of it in a quasi-objective manner then why should the external not be

distinguished from the internal.

 

Now comes the point which is vital to the understanding of Advaita and where

it is very easy to conflate the two positions or not to find any real

distinction between them. It is that 'self-luminous' cognition idea, a

shared principle arising out of the same Vedic matrix but understood very

differently. For the Buddhist 'self-luminous' means that you can do away

with the idea of a Self, the stream of consciousness simply knows itself.

In effect Sankara says that this is a case of the self acting on itself, a

type of lifting oneself up by the seat of one's own pants.

 

Well the alternative to that is the fall into infinite regress which at

first sight seems a killer point. The Buddhist understands the Advaitin's

self as a sort of mental subject knowing a mental object. That self in

order to be assented to in order that knowledge be complete and finished

will have to be known by another and that one again by another.

 

How is that regress avoided? Self and state of awareness are non-dual.

Though they are different by nature, superimposition causes the Self to

become identified with the mind. The difference in nature allows the Self

to know the state of mind but because it is not on the same level (this is

the non-unity aspect) the slide towards regress is halted. This

metaphysical aspect of knowledge mirrors the real knowing of the Jiva of

his world.

 

So how is consciousness one? This is the question as posed by the subject

of this thread. As I understand it the Absolute is mirrored in the

relative. We find our way to there from here. That is our starting point

that we have to work from. Satyan in communication with Ken queries the

translation of the passage "A subsequent knowledge does not arise without

negating the previous one (e.g. the knowledge of the rope does not come

without destroying that of the snake in a rope-snake). Pure Consciousness

the Self, only has all independent existence and is never negated as it is

the result of evidences." This is jarring on first sight but Swami

Jagadananda refers us back to paras. 103/108 in the prose section Chap.II.

This objection was made there and was answered by the Teacher. 'Evidences'

in this sense mean that the nature of the Self as Knowledge is not changed

whether as manifest or unmanifested. "The knowledge preceded by memory,

desire, etc. and supposed to be transitory, and those which are eternal and

immutable do not differ in their essential nature". So then it is this

unity of nature which allows the external reality to be within us as the

same but with mind showing its power of having abstract ideas as it 'works'

on this material.

 

"For it is a queer thing that we should be able to get other things inside

ourselves" (Mascall) Sankara makes a similar remark in his preamble to the

B.S.B. The real world is both outside and inside ourselves. (I'm using

real under licence) This is a basic metaphysical intuition. Is it

something you either get or don't get? Genuine thinkers hold that it is

just obvious that by being inside us (where they accept consciousness)

'same' cannot be applied, the other eludes us always out of reach. Here I

must leave it.

Best Wishes, Michael.

 

 

 

 

 

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Dear TKB-ji,

 

That was a charming rendition of the famous Indian parable of the

blind men and the elephant.

Thank you.

 

Now ... to tell the truth ... I could dissect that poem

philosophically ... but I won't.

 

Unless you insist! :-)

 

Hari Om!

Benjamin

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Dear Benjamin-ji,

 

I insist :).

I visited your site.

Nice stuff there, Have not finished reading all areas.

 

Regards

TKB

 

 

--- Benjamin Root <orion777ben wrote:

>

> Dear TKB-ji,

> Unless you insist! :-)

>

> Hari Om!

> Benjamin

 

 

 

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Dear TKB and Michael Reidy,

 

I have promised Ram to limit my email to he site to 2 messages a day.

That last one was so brief that I'll ignore it. I now would like to

answer both of you in this one. But unlike beofre, I won't

necessarily answer at great length. I'm sure I've lost most of my

audience by now, and I tend to keep repeating myself anyway. Still,

I feel that pursuing the debate just a bit further could be

beneficial. Sri Ram suggested a new topic next month, so I assume

that this can linger until the end of this one.

 

 

REPLY TO SRI TKB (16020):

>>Dear TKB-ji,

>>

>>That was a charming rendition of the famous Indian parable of the

>>blind men and the elephant.

>>Thank you.

>>

>>Now ... to tell the truth ... I could dissect that poem

>>philosophically ... but I won't.

>>

>>Unless you insist! :-)

>

>

>

>Dear Benjamin-ji,

>

>I insist :).

 

 

Your poem is indeed charming but the analogy does not apply to the

philosophical problem I am discussing for the following reason.

 

Blind Man A feeling the trunk corresponds to the contents of my

consciousness. Blind Man B feeling the ear corresponds to the

contents of your consciousness. Under this analogy, my entire

consciousness is collapsed into only one of the senses, namely, the

sense of touch. Likewise, your entire consciousness is collapsed

into your sense of touch. Therefore, we must restrict the discussion

only to the sense of touch and not bring in any other senses.

Clearly, what Blind Man A perceives through his sense of touch is

different from what Blind Man B perceives through his sense of touch.

Since 'sense of touch' has been made to stand for the entire

consciousness of a blind man, this only makes my claim that their

consciousnesses are different. I am trying to reconcile this with

the Advaitin claim that their consciousnesses are the same in some

sense.

 

Now it is not fair to say, 'But there is an entire elephant there, of

which the blind men see only a part'. This simply assumes what my

theory is denying, namely, that there is a real, common-sense

material elephant in real, common-sense 'Newtonian' space external to

consciousness (yours, mine or the blind men's).

 

All I need to do is repeat my arguments.

 

Suppose you are doing what you call 'standing there watching the

blind men groping the elephant'. You have a certain sequence of

perceptions in your consciousness called 'seeing the elephant and

blind men'. This sequence of perceptions may include all the senses:

vision, sound, smell, taste and touch. (Actually, I don't recommend

tasting the elephant!) The blind men also have a sequence of

perceptions in THEIR respective consciousnesses, restricted to the

sense of touch. (All right, they may also have the senses of sound,

smell and taste, but let's ignore that.)

 

The important point is that this description of the situation in

terms of several 'streams of consciousness' (yours and the blind

men's) is ALL THAT IS NEEDED to fully describe the situation. There

is no need or justification for asserting that there is a 'real'

elephant 'out there' distinct from the respective consciousnesses of

you and the blind men. There is no justification for saying, 'Oh the

poor blind men, they are seeing only a part of the whole real

elephant, which I can fortunately perceive in its totality!'

 

The 'elephant' is NO MORE THAN the contents (perceptions) of your

respective streams of consciousness. It may be nice for the blind

men if they had more senses in their consciousness, but it is

irrelevant to the argument. The point is that the elephant is no

more than the contents of the respective streams of consciousness.

So to say than the blind men are not seeing the 'whole elephant' is a

misunderstanding of the word 'elephant'. You are assuming that there

is a 'real' 'material' elephant 'out there' ('outside' of

consciousness) which is the TRUE elephant, of which the blind men

perceive only a portion. In fact, the elephant is no more than the

sequences of perceptions in the several streams of consciousness.

 

Now some of these streams of consciousness (those of the blind men)

may become 'richer' and more interesting if they contained more

senses. The blind men might jump for joy if they suddenly saw the

glorious colors of the elephant and of what appears to be a world

surrounding the elephant. But the important point is that there is

no real, material elephant to which the perceptions refer. There are

only the perceptions in the several streams of consciousness. So

there is no justification for telling the blind men that they are

failing to see the whole real elephant that is there outside of their

consciousness. What you really mean to say is that it would be nice

if they had more sense WITHIN their respective consciousnesses, and I

am sure that they would agree.

 

So while the blind men remain blind, their consciousness is what it

is. And yours and mine is what it is. But there is no external,

material world which we may take as the reference of the 'truth' or

'completeness' of our consciousnesses. There are only the streams of

consciousnesses themselves, and they do not overlap. Even if we all

have all of our senses and see, hear, smell, taste and touch

everything that we could about the 'elephant', and even if we nearly

agreed in every minute detail about this 'elephant', our streams of

consciousness would still be utterly distinct, even though nearly

perfect replicas of each other. So I don't see how they can be

equated or identified in any sense, as Advaita seems to do. (But as

I have said several times, there are other dry, abstract, 'logical'

reasons why I may want to do this anyway, and hence my puzzlement and

desire for discussion.)

 

 

 

REPLY TO SRI REIDY (16017):

 

I only read your first message, and I will respond only briefly as I

am exhausted after dealing with Sri TKB.

>In that internal world how is one seeming 'I see a pillar' to be

>differentiated from 'I seem to see a pillar' or 'I seem to be seeming

>to see a pillar'.

 

This is like the 'solipsistic' criticism, which I have repeatedly

argued against, lastly in (16014).

 

Briefly, 'I see a pillar' and 'I seem to see a pillar' refer to the

same process in consciousness. There is no problem between 'seeming'

and reality. They mean the same thing, as long as you are not

delusional. There is nothing to be afraid of. To be delusional

means to have perceptions that others 'in your environment' do not

have or that do not obey the laws of physics. (For several

consciousnesses to be 'in the same environment' simply means that

they are having similar perceptions that obey the laws of physics.

It is theoretically possible for several delusional people to also

have similar perceptions, but this never happens, and would probably

not obey the laws of physics.)

 

So your criticism arises from the discomfort you feel from the loaded

word 'seeming', as though there were no way to tell 'reality'.

'Reality' is no more than similar law-abiding sequences of

perceptions in different streams of consciousness. The previous

discussion about the elephant is also relevant to this.

 

Pranams all!

Benjamin

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Dear Benjamin,

> I'm sure I've lost most of my

> audience by now,

 

I don't know about others, but you have certainly not lost me. I must

however confess that I am struggling to keep pace.

 

Over the past few days and over more than 100 posts on the subject,

we have all been trying unsuccessfully to reconcile the contradiction

between the two statements you made in your very first post, both of

which are or atleast seem to be correct.

 

1. Consciousness is everything.

2. Each one us has a separate stream of consciousness which are

coordinated by the invisible hand of 'laws of physics'.

 

If I remeber right it was Ayn Rand who said somewhere,"There are no

contradictions in life. If you come across one, check your

assumptions; one of them will be wrong"

 

So may be there is no contradiction between the two statements.To see

if this alternative position will stand the test of Ockam's Razor, I

paint the following analogy with help from Lankavatara Sutra, TKB's

Blind Men of Indostan and your philosophy on the Blind Men's

experience.

 

Venkat goes to sleep and has a dream. In his dream he sees a blind

folded Benjamin (BFB) and a blind folded TKB (BFT)feeling an

Elephant. BFB catches hold of the tail of the Elephant and concludes

that what he has got hold of is a rope. BFT catches hold of a foot

and concludes that it is a pillar. While arguing, in Venkat's dream,

about this basic difference in each others perception, they also

touch upon some fundamental issues. BFB feels that what he is aware

of is only a perception in his own stream of consciousness on which

basis it is impossible to conclude that there really is a rope out

there in Venkat's dream. BFT feels that since BFB is not aware of the

whole of the contents of his own consciousness, he cannot be too sure

about anything. Even as they were thus continuing, Venkat decides to

switch over to greener pastures and starts dreaming about Ash.Since

pursuing his dream any further will take us away from the subject,

let us stop here and analyse only that portion of Venkat's dream that

is described above.

 

1. Quite obviously in the dream, Venkat's consciousness is everything.

2. Equally obviously, in the very same dream, the content of BFB's

stream of consciousness is different from that of BFT's stream.

 

So where is the contradiciton; the two statements can coexist without

any problems.The advaitic statement is that all that there is

(venkat, BFB, BFT, the contents of their respective consciousness,

the elephant, their discussing the matter with each other and

whatever else like the taste and the smell of the elephant which they

do not talk about)is the same stuff - Dreaming Venkat's consciousness

(DVC). Within the same DVC and made up of the same DVC are the two

different streams of consciousness of BFB and BFT. There is no

contradiction in this difference in unity. From the stand point of

BFB and BFT there is difference but from the stand point of DVC there

is unity. In my opinion, the non-contradiction between the two is

because the two stand points belong to different orders of reality.

(If I have understood Michael's last post right, this was the point

he was trying to make).

 

The BFB and BFT streams of consciousness only have a dependent

reality or what advaita views as transactional reality or vyAvahArica

sattA.(When Venkat's dream subject changes to Ash, both BFB and BFT

are lost). The reality of their sub-stratum DVC however is

independent - pAramArthika sattA. (Even after BFB and BFT are lost,

DVC continues).At the independent level, DVC alone is and there is

nothing else. However at the transactional level there is BFB, BFT,

Ash and Venkat streams.Though they appear to be equally real, advaita

views only DVC as really real beacuse

 

a) it is independent i.e. not subject to negation by BFB, BFT, Ash or

Venkat, while they are negated by DVC.

b) available at all times i.e. permanent during the dream.

 

Cannot the above analysis be extended to what we call our waking

reality.

 

PranAms

Venkat

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Dear Venkat-ji,

 

First of all, my profound sympathy on the Mumbai bomb blasts

.... right there in your very own neighborhood! We could launch on a

long discussion of how Advaitins should think about terrorism, but I

know that Sri Ram would prefer that we didn't. Still, it reminds us

that all of these ethereal discussions are ultimately about dealing

with a painful reality.

 

Secondly, let me tell you how good it feels to see your

enthusiasm, and to see that you are really reading these posts with

care. When there is sincerity and enthusiasm in the spiritual quest,

differences of opinion become irrelevant compared to the stimulation

and inspiration that arise from the common intimate experience.

 

Thirdly, thanks for presenting a clear, sustained, detailed,

carefully written argument with examples, as I have tried to do.

That is how progress is made.

 

Fourthly, I'm glad to see that an Advaitin can have a sense

of humor, about Ash and other topics.

 

OK, now to your argument.

 

For one thing, the consciousness of BFB and BFT simply do no

exist in any way whatsoever in your dream. There is only your

consciousness, but you are imagining something that might happen if

you were awake. If you were awake, then your perception of BFB and

BFT would indeed correspond to OTHER actual consciousness, as in my

previous elephant discussion. (I have rejected solipsism several

times and do not wish to recapitulate my reasons. We both believe in

each other's actual consciousness when awake, so that is really not a

problem.)

 

So, for example, as statement such as

>1. Quite obviously in the dream, Venkat's consciousness is everything.

 

is quite correct, and the statement

>2. Equally obviously, in the very same dream, the content of BFB's

>stream of consciousness is different from that of BFT's stream.

 

is quite incorrect, in that is refers to entities that in no way

exist. Hence, in my opinion, this does not, unfortunately, solve the

contradiction.

 

Nevertheless, you are on the right track to be contemplating

your dream. The example of a dream is a great way to understand my

argument against materiality, but it works only as a tool to analyze

your waking consciousness (by comparison) and your perception of an

apparently external material world within that waking consciousness.

You must not then start to treat the appearances of 'people' within

your dream the same way you would treat the appearances of 'people'

when awake, that is, by ascribing separate consciousnesses to them.

(Of course, it is easy to play the solipsistic game and ask why we

should not ascribe consciousness to the dream-people if we do so to

the the waking-people, but in some cases even philosophers are

allowed to use a little good sense.)

 

And it was fun to consider your example, even if I disagree

with it. Philosophy is also about such sport and entertainment.

 

Om!

Benjamin

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