Advaita connection with science-based philosophy

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Namaste Dennis-ji,

 

In the current " Pot-space " thread, you mention Q. 168 at your website

(http://www.advaita.org.uk/discourses/q_and_a/q_and_a17.htm#q168). I found your

comments there useful in connecting Advaita and Thomas Metzinger's philosophy

(which is influenced by/based on neuroscience) on the false sense of being a

separate, individual self. He has written only a very small amount about

Shankara's philosophy in this regard (since he's more interested in a

science-based approach to the problem), and I found your comments to be quite

helpful. Thank you.

 

In that section of your site, you wrote: " read about the pot-space versus

total-space metaphor used by Gaudapada in his Mandukya kArikA II.3-9. ... there

is no real journey to be made; we are already the non-dual reality (the pot

space is already the total space). People are never 'absolutely real' and

enlightenment is realizing all of this. ... At the end of 'our life', nothing at

all happens to Consciousness. When the pot breaks, the pot-space is unaffected

because the pot-space never existed. "

 

I find that a pretty good connection with Metzinger's statements: " I certainly

feel like someone, but there is no such thing " and " If it is true that the self

is not a thing (but a process as I've described it) then it is also true that

the tragedy of the ego dissolves because, strictly speaking, nobody is ever born

and nobody ever dies. "

 

Your discussion wasn't written for this purpose, and I'm not trying to make it

support/justify his views or vice-versa. I just found your comments personally

useful for making a connection between these two separate approaches and wanted

to thank you for providing them. Since there are significant differences

between them, it may not be wise to mix science-based philosophy and Advaita,

but I find it hard to avoid trying it with some aspects where they seem close to

one another.

 

Lema