The logic of Buddhist philosophy • Hacker News Board

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#201

Post by muhuk » Sat, May 10, 2014, 2:34 AM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #193

muhuk wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can something exist without identity? Can something exist yet have no nature? Can something exist without being (anything)?

Let me start by pointing to to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7715277 . How do you know something exists? Because you can see it. So you don't know that something exists, you only know that your sense impressions have been triggered. How do you know its nature? Because of what you see. So you don't know anything about its nature, only about its relationship with your sensory apparatus. (Hey, I may have just inv…

By your logic, that you didn't own but used nevertheless:

You don't know I asked those questions, you only know that your sense impressions have been triggered.

Similarly my eyes sent some signals to my brain and after processing them I have concluded that you have replied to my comment. But wait! I don't really know you replied me, do I?

Since my senses are unreliable and I don't have any other means to interact with reality but my senses, my mind is impotent to deal with reality. What else can I do but go through my life hallucinating and doubting myself or inventing fantasies to keep my sanity.

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When you look at the moon (at the right time) you see circle. Then you can decide the moon is circular. Your senses are working just fine, so is your brain. It's your limited knowledge that leads you to wrong conclusions. As you observe and learn more, you integrate more and more concepts and you can eventually arrive to the point that moon is indeed a somewhat spherical object.

Or you can conclude that your senses are lying to you and reality cannot be known. Then you'd never go further than "looks circular, but know knows, right?".

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#202

Post by orasis » Sat, May 10, 2014, 4:47 AM UTC

Strilanc wrote: post #15

I would have enjoyed this article if it dropped the Buddhism and kept the math. Alternate logics are interesting, but you tend to be able to reduce them into each other in the same way that universal turing machines can simulate each other. They don't add new functionality, they add succinctness. So it's really strange to me to frame them as totally different philosophies . For example, it is the case that self-refer…

Until math can bring the mind to directly realize the ineffable, you're going to want something like Buddhism.

The whole point of enlightenment is for the mind to escape the trap of logics/concepts and directly perceive and be liberated by the ineffable. This is emptiness, which cannot be described, and is simply this present self-known experience which is infinitely slippery and effortless.

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#203

Post by orasis » Sat, May 10, 2014, 4:50 AM UTC

logicchains wrote: post #39

The logic of Buddhist philosophy: emotional attachment to and/or desire of impermanent things has the potential to result in dissatisfaction, as impermanent things are impermanent. It's hardly rocket science. Desire nothing, and you'll never never feel the dissatisfaction of not getting what you want. Be attached to nothing, and you'll never feel the pain of losing something. Some quotes by emperor Marcus Aurelius, o…

Thats a quite pedestrian view of Buddhism that may have sufficed for ignorant lay people.

But, being an intelligent person, you're going to want to go for the meat of it, which is to realize emptiness of the ineffable and see that both subject (observer) and object (observed) are empty. In short, meditate.

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#204

Post by orasis » Sat, May 10, 2014, 4:53 AM UTC

wyager wrote: post #116

wwweston wrote: post #114

> If something is ineffable, i, it is certainly neither true nor false. Wouldn't it instead be the case that it's simply not expressible inside a given formalism (or other form of expression)?

That is absolutely the case. If something is "ineffable", it's probably logically ill-defined, and we should treat anyone who tries to use something "ineffable" in formal argument as a mystic spouting hogwash.

This present experience is ineffable. Is this present experience hogwash?

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#205

Post by thyrsus » Sat, May 10, 2014, 6:28 AM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #65

This made me think of an interesting way I have heard some people answer the question "if God is omnipotent, then can he create a rock so heavy he wouldn't be able to lift it and then lift it? If yes, he is not omnipotent, if no, he is not omnipotent!" with a logical leap also hard to comprehend to western minds - he can do both, and that's why he is considered omnipotent. He doesn't need to follow human logic, hence…

A rock too heavy to lift would be a rock inside the event horizon of a black hole, if one can stipulate that the rock still "exists".

My own attitude toward paradoxes concerning God is that understanding is a gift - awesome in its comprehension of the universe from big bang to Planck length scale interactions. Nonetheless, the understanding given to us as finite beings will be incomplete and approximate. If we avoid every other end, dementia will eventually remove what little understanding we have. I hold that rejection of the gift of understanding - e.g., the six day materialist biblical interpretation - is a grave error. Nonetheless, I hold that entities (or sets of relations) exist for which I will never have a consistent or correct rational model - and that one of those is God. Other instances are my fellow humans, and even myself. It should go without saying, ignorance does not preclude fascination with, delight in, nor love for those beings.

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#206

Post by vram22 » Sat, May 10, 2014, 9:15 AM UTC

wfn wrote: post #199

vram22 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, here's my attempt at an answer: Take his statement: "I think, therefore I am." My guess is that the way people interpret it is like this: Descartes is saying that he (notices that he) thinks, wbich (to him) implies that he must exist. The statement can be broken down like this: A, therefore B where A = "I think" and B = "I am". But if you look at it like this: the "I am" part is asserting that he exists, which ac…

Thanks for this. :) Indeed, I think I actually mostly agree with you. See my longer comment / explication of Descartes' argument (if it's an argument) above: I personally (also) think that "I think" already presupposes too much. What one might be able to argue is a lesser version of the thing, though: thinking, therefore, existing. ("thought exists" (whatever that actually means!)) > So it seems like he is already as…

No problem, and you're welcome. I agree that he could have asserted a lesser version, such as "thoughts exist", as you say. Interesting points, and good discussion, thanks!

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#207

Post by logicchains » Sat, May 10, 2014, 12:34 PM UTC

virtualwhys wrote: post #178

logicchains wrote: post #39

The logic of Buddhist philosophy: emotional attachment to and/or desire of impermanent things has the potential to result in dissatisfaction, as impermanent things are impermanent. It's hardly rocket science. Desire nothing, and you'll never never feel the dissatisfaction of not getting what you want. Be attached to nothing, and you'll never feel the pain of losing something. Some quotes by emperor Marcus Aurelius, o…

Interesting, while there may be similarities between the stoic approach and extant Buddhist teachings, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that a stoic would never write something like this: Four and fifty years I've hung the sky with stars. Now I leap through – What shattering! Eihei Dogen (death poem) Buddhist logic seems to have religious experience as its foundation.

When I speak of Buddhism I'm referring to the teachings of Buddha, not Buddhism as an organised religion. I lived in East Asia for a couple of years and the Buddhism there seemed pretty much the opposite of what Buddha taught; e.g. people praying to statues of Buddha for wealth.

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#208

Post by logicchains » Sat, May 10, 2014, 12:45 PM UTC

orasis wrote: post #203

logicchains wrote: post #39

The logic of Buddhist philosophy: emotional attachment to and/or desire of impermanent things has the potential to result in dissatisfaction, as impermanent things are impermanent. It's hardly rocket science. Desire nothing, and you'll never never feel the dissatisfaction of not getting what you want. Be attached to nothing, and you'll never feel the pain of losing something. Some quotes by emperor Marcus Aurelius, o…

Thats a quite pedestrian view of Buddhism that may have sufficed for ignorant lay people. But, being an intelligent person, you're going to want to go for the meat of it, which is to realize emptiness of the ineffable and see that both subject (observer) and object (observed) are empty. In short, meditate.

Meditation isn't necessary; you don't need to be a Buddhist to see that, with sufficient analysis/deconstruction, distinctions between the subject and object - or between anything and anything - break down and reveal themselves as arbitrary.

Meditation corrects errors in thought by stopping thought. But logical understanding of the fallacious nature of concepts allows such errors to be avoided even when not meditating.

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#209

Post by javert » Sun, May 11, 2014, 6:20 PM UTC

marcblackbeard wrote: post #153

javert wrote: post #6

But the Law of Non-Contradiction does hold. And it's very easy to save the PEM if you distinguish the value of a proposition (true or false) and the cognitive status of the proposition (certain, probable, possible, or arbitrary). Moreover, to exist is to have a particular identity, to have a nature, to be something. Thus, all of this work is utter hogwash. The professor who wrote this IS practicing mysticism and irra…

>If this kind of thinking were to get "popular," Western civilization and science would collapse into skepticism and religion would take over again. Just as happened in the Middle Ages and at the end of the Islamic Golden Age (in the latter case, there never was a recovery). argumentum ad consequentiam

I made my argument in the first 4 sentences of my comment, and this, my 5th sentence, was an aside.

All this is obvious, and your comment is dishonest.

Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy

#210

Post by livingparadox » Mon, May 12, 2014, 11:01 PM UTC

phreeza wrote: post #85

livingparadox wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would clarify that the "paradox" of being fully human and fully divine is an apparent paradox, not an actual paradox. Most theologians I've come into contact with hold to Jesus' nature being the intersection of all divine traits and all human traits, allowing him to be both God and Man without contradiction. The confusion I think lies in the ambiguity of the word "fully". Its a paradox if we take it to mean "100% o…

Not to start a theological debate here, but doesn't that imply none of the traits are mutually exclusive? Fallible and infallible comes to mind as a counterexample.

Its a good question that got me thinking. so thank you.

I'm not sure if either one would be necessary traits, though. Fallability and infallibility in this case are most likely just functions of our knowledge. And humans do not, by necessity, have to have imperfect knowledge; it just so happens that no normal human being has imperfect knowledge.