World of objects

[Guest guest]

Namaste Gregji!

 

Your message is most stimulating! Yet you say some misleading things

that I must correct immediately (online not offline), so that list

members are not confused. This might prevent them from benefiting

from the correct, clear and important point that I was making about

Advaita. I won't take long.

 

You said:

>Two things, I'll try to make it quick. One is, you

>have this theory which I'll call (Cb) "Consciousness

>a la Benjamin." (Cb) states that "consciousness is

>indeed everything," and no matter or prakriti exists

>outside of it. I agree that really believing something

>like (Cb) helps deconstruct the world of so-called material

>objects. It is a help along the advaita path.

 

>Two, (Cb) is not the same as subjective idealism. Close,

>but not the same thing. Classical idealism (Ic) was a way

>to explain physical entities in terms of mental entities.

>You don't want to say that (Cb) does the same thing, do you?

>To call idealism "subjective" is just to say that it's an

>individual or private thing, not relying on one great

>objective super-mind.

>One notable difference between (Cb) and (Ic) is that (Ic)

>retains the Western dualism between mental and physical

>entities. (Cb), as stated above, does not retain this dualism.

>I suspect but don't know for sure, that if you think (Cb) and

>(Ic) are the same, then there's some subtle acceptance of the

>mental/physical dualism at play in (Cb). So that if we unpacked

>its terms, we'd find it entails a similar dualism.

 

 

All is not hopeless. Good textbooks do agree on some things,

especially definitions.

 

Idealism is the view that consciousness or mind is the fundamental

principle of reality. This does not necessarily exclude some kind of

material world, as we will see. However, mind not matter always

remains the fundamental principle, in contrast to materialism.

 

Subjective idealism is the view that *only* the contents of

consciousness exist (namely perceptions, thoughts and feelings).

Although perceptions may seem to refer to (and be caused by) an

'external' material world (i.e. a world outside of consciousness in

some sense), they do not. There are only the perceptions themselves.

This is all it takes to be a subjective idealist, and Berkeley and I

are indeed this. I did not invent any whimsical naive version of my

own.

 

Berkeley does add further ideas about the role of God which I do not

quite agree with, but those ideas are not essential to subjective

idealism, only to his version of it. Furthermore, a subjective

idealist may believe there are many individual consciousnesses like

yours and mine, or one single all-encompassing consciousness (like

Brahman), or both. The only requirement is that there be nothing

other than consciousness in some form or another.

 

Now 'objective' idealists such as Kant and Hegel believed that the

'external' world does exist but that it is shaped (Kant) or

controlled (Hegel) by mind. Kant clearly believed in an external

'noumenal' world, which is strongly shaped by the categories of our

mind (e.g. space, time and causation) before we can experience it.

Hegel had a vast, confused and contrived philosophy, which is of no

use to us.

 

There are also 'absolute' idealists like Bradley who claim to

believe in a single all-encompassing Reality beyond consciousness and

matter, but they are confused, as the categories of consciousness and

matter exhaust all possibilities (matter being by definition whatever

is not consciousness).

 

In contrast to all this, materialists believe that matter is the

fundamental principle, and that even life and mind all arise from

the blind whirling of atoms in the primeval soup. This view simply

cannot explain consciousness, in my opinion, and is exceedingly

flawed, notwithstanding that it corresponds more or less to

contemporary 'common sense'.

 

See a nice well written account at

http://www.sophiasworld.at/PhilosophyHTML/obideal.html

 

In conclusion, it is without a doubt incorrect to say (or imply) that

classical (Western) idealism retains some trace of 'dualism between

mental and physical entities'. You were thinking of objective

idealism, but Berkeley is different. My subjective idealism is not a

personal concoction but is rather one of the 'archetypal' views one

might have about reality. If Berkeley had not discovered it in the

West, someone else might have.

 

Finally, the words 'individual' and 'private' are loaded. Even

though I still feel that my consciousness and yours are private in

some sense, this does not necessarily exclude Brahman as the

substratum of both of our consciousnesses. Indeed, that is also my

view, since I accept at an intellectual level that there must be some

unique 'divine' source for both of our consciousnesses, which is not

distinct from said consciousnesses. In speaking of our seemingly

private consciousnesses, I am simply making an honest

phenomenological report of how things seem to me at my present stage

of spiritual development. At the same time, my intellect recognizes

that Brahman as the substratum implies an inner unity that

contradicts the seemingly private nature. But it is still just

intellectual for me, which is why I raised the subject in the first

place a few months ago. I was hoping that some inspired poets on

this list could find just the right words to give me that flash of

intuition that I need to rise above my own personal phenomenology and

gaze from the top of Mount Everest. I am still keeping my fingers

crossed.

 

Om!

Benjamin

[Guest guest]

Hello All,

What I've been trying to say is that there is no real

conflict between the theory known as Subjective

Idealism/Immmaterialism and Advaita because they are

not in the same arena. The advaitin's world is given

to him framed in a realistic way. For the moment I

can think of no other way of putting this other than

that this is ontologically primitive. The European

thinker that most clearly grasps this is Sartre. The

introduction of 'Being and Nothingness' is worth

reading. Not everyone's cup of restrait (espresso)

but a good antidote to esse est percipii.

 

Sankara's dismissal is succint - "For they use the

phrase 'as though' in the clause 'as though

external' just because they too become aware of a

cognition appearing externally in the same way as is

well known to all people, and yet they want to deny

any external object. Else why should they say, "as

though external"? For nobody speaks thus:

'Visnumitra appears like the son of a barren woman'.

Accordingly, those who accept truth to be just what

it is actually perceived to be, should accept a thing

as it actually reveals itself externally, and not 'as

though appearing outside'." II.ii.28 B.S.B.(what

else!).

 

This is an anticipation of the notion that this

externality is built into the Idealist theory. In

II.ii.27 B.S.B.....the belief that external things

exist was taught (by Buddha) as a concession to some

of those followers who were noticed to have a

prediliction for external things. (says the

Vijnanavadin)

 

In effect Sankara is saying why should anyone claim

the non-existent as the basis for anything

particularly that which is logically self-

contradictory.

 

Side Bar: Are there any lurking Indian university

students of philosophy (undergraduates/graduates)?

What do you read of Western thought. I'm curious you

can write off-list if you like.

 

The following rebuttal of the Vijnanavadins claim that

the existence of an external object is an

impossibility is Sankara at his most penetrating.

He's good you know.

 

But this must wait until the debate (in the forest of

the internet) is properlay underway,

 

Best Wishes, Michael.

[Guest guest]

At 07:36 PM 6/15/2003 +0100, ombhurbhuva wrote:

>But this must wait until the debate (in the forest of

>the internet) is properlay underway,

 

Hi Michael,

 

Debate?? With all these fans of Western idealism coming out of the closet,

(you, Benjamin, Greg), along with people in sympathy with the "higher" of the

Advaitin creation theories (most of the list here?), who's going to debate that

there really *are* external material objects? :-)

 

--Greg

[Guest guest]

Namaste Greg!

>Debate?? With all these fans of Western idealism coming

>out of the closet, (you, Benjamin, Greg), along with people

>in sympathy with the "higher" of the Advaitin creation theories

>(most of the list here?), who's going to debate that there

>really *are* external material objects? :-)

 

 

Yes, I'm really glad we've gotten rid of those nasty material

objects. They were getting to be quite a nuisance! Good riddance!

:-)

 

Om!

Benjamin