As per the Kaccānagotta Sutta existence (atthitā) and non-existence (n’atthitā) are not suitable terms for this discussion. You want us to indulge in metaphysical speculations on the basis of experience. The early Buddhists did not believe this to be a profitable use of our time. Nor do I.
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The answer about what Buddha taught about existence can be found also in this topic, page 62: An unique experiment - First time on a buddhist forum - #62 by dxm_dxm
Is Buddha engaging in speculation in SN 22.94 ?
Yes, that is the common position of popular Buddhism. Good luck with that. I’ve given it up as unuseful and ineffective.
I have tried to show that I believe the suttas make a case for the position: ‘questioning the existence of self is wrong attention and leads to wrong view’, but it seems you don’t want to believe that, nor try giving up that wrong attention. As you wish. Good luck with that.
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I’m taking off the eternalist and realist hats now (sounded all a bit too much like some kind of strange metaphysical personal column: “naive realist, good sense of humour, seeks open-minded eternalist for some philosophical speculating and maybe later something more …” 
).
I actually agree with a lot of what you say above. However, my issue with your experiment is that for meaningful debate and discussion, there really needs to be a reasonable amount of common ground between participants.
Theists have endlessly debated the nature of reality, the nature of the Divine, the problem of evil and the like. Similarly, there has been no shortage of materialistic philosophers theorizing about the nature of reality. Plenty of hairs have been split and many arguments had between the various Buddhist schools early and modern .
Lots of the spiritual systems and paths make certain fundamental assumptions about the universe and nature of reality and, then assuming those things actually are true, would be perfectly reasonable ways of living.
I think if you want widen your experiment beyond Buddhism, you have to, rather than arguing about the alternative systems themselves, you have to argue about the assumptions they make about reality, whether those assumptions accord with reality as it is. And I don’t think that argumentation is really useful in that regard (not at least when there are such large chasms between the sets of assumptions).
A theist may say there is some transcendent reality beyond material reality (the five aggregates or whatever). It’s a fundamental premise. It’s either true or not. I’ve not even sure how one would prove or disprove it (argumentation surely won’t help). It’s a kind of get out of jail clause to the argument you make in your OP. Where’s the self to be found? Well there’s space in this transcendent reality (if it exists that is). That’s a bit of a discussion killer really.
A materialistic would probably be perfectly fine with the notion that their self is some kind of organic process of a type that could be replicated by sophisticated algorithms in silicon. They’d probably wonder about the utility of the whole “no self” idea (other than perhaps thinking that it might reduce egotism , but perhaps puzzled otherwise at your OP argument).
Even within Buddhism, I’m not sure argumentation has been of much use in bridging differing views of non-self between Mahayanists and Theravadins. You can argue about what the Buddha did or didn’t say making use of various suttas (early or later) and argue about their historical credentials, but that’s a type of argument that indirectly appeals to authority (or attempts to figure out what that authority actually said).
I think your experiment is fine within fairly Buddhism confines, but I’d suspect is less useful is you broaden it out much further than that.
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So we are all clear, what the sutta says is:
nāhaṃ, bhikkhave, lokena vivadāmi, lokova mayā vivadati. Na, bhikkhave, dhammavādī kenaci lokasmiṃ vivadati. Yaṃ, bhikkhave, natthisammataṃ loke paṇḍitānaṃ, ahampi taṃ natthī’ti vadāmi. Yaṃ, bhikkhave, atthisammataṃ loke paṇḍitānaṃ, ahampi taṃ atthī’ti vadāmi. (SN iii.138)
"I do not dispute with the world (lokena), the world disputes with me. Bhikkhus, a Buddhist doesn’t dispute with anything/anyone in the world (lokasmiṃ). What the scholars (paṇḍita) agree is not in the world (loke), I also say that ‘it isn’t’ (taṃ natthi). What the scholars agree is in the world, I also say ‘it is’ (taṃ atthi).
The word loka is used in two difference senses in this sutta, as marked by the two different forms of the locative - lokasmiṃ is a Sanskritised form, and loke is the standard Pāli form. As per Jan Gonda’s long essay on the word in Sanskrit, loka is primarily “the visible world”, or in our terms “the perceptual world” (cf the Sabba Sutta SN 35:23). As Sue Hamilton has shown in Early Buddhism: A New Approach, at least in some contexts, Pāli suttas refer to one’s experience (dukkha), arising from the apparatus of experience (the khandhas) as being one’s world (loka).
The khandhas… "are the factors of human experience (or, better the experiencing factors) that one needs to understand in order to achieve the goal of the Buddhist teachings.” (Hamilton 2000, p. 29)
Bhikkhu Bodhi has come to a similar conclusion:
“The world with which the Buddha’s teaching is principally concerned is ‘the world of experience,’ and even the objective world is of interest only to the extent that it serves as that necessary external condition for experience.” (Bodhi 2000, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: 394, n.182)
Loka is sometimes substituted for dukkha as the product of paṭiccasamupāda.
evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa samudayo hoti
Such is the arising of this whole mass of dissatisfactionayaṃ kho bhikkhave lokassa samudayo
This, monks, is the arising of the world
And cf also
dukkhameva hi sambhoti, dukkhaṃ tiṭṭhati veti ca;
nāññatra dukkhā sambhoti, nāññaṃ dukkhā nirujjhatī ti (S i.136)Only disappointment is produced, disappointment persists, and ceases; Nothing other than disappointment is produced; nothing other than disappointment ceases.
And what is it that the scholars agree is in the world (loke) in SN 22.94? It is precisely the five khandhas. But what would it mean for the khandhas to be in the world (i.e. in experience)? The khandhas are the apparatus by which we have experiences, they are synonymous with the experiential world.
So SN 22.94 is not metaphysics, it is epistemology. It is often translated with a metaphysical spin, i.e. by translating taṃ atthi as “it exists” rather than “it is”. There is a big difference between saying “the khandhas exist in the world” and “the khandhas are in the world”. So we do have to keep in mind that it is precisely with respect to loka that the Kaccānagotta Sutta denies the applicability of existence (atthitā) and non-existence (n’atthitā) because they are two poles of a duality. Existence implies permanence (in this worldview) and ceasing (nirodha) tells us that permanence doesn’t apply. Similarly arising (samudāya) contradicts the idea of non-existence.
It is a vitally important distinction to make for practising Buddhists. We are not in search of some transcendental reality beyond experience; there is no absolute being (Brahman/ātman). The acme of Buddhism is the end of rebirth and therefore the extinction of dukkha (aka conditioned experience) (nibbāṇa), after which things are inexplicable (avyakata). This is why the suññatāvihāra later became such an important focus for some Buddhists, since in it all sense and cognitive experience ceases (nirodha).
There is plenty of metaphysical speculation in the Pāli suttas, but I don’t believe this to be an example. Rather it is part of a series of thematically linked suttas which discuss the world of experience and how to abandon it (SN 35:24).
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What if Khandhas are the world and since they arise in a chain of specific causes and effects (idapaccayata) so does the so called ‘world’?
Sorry if it wasn’t clear, but I was saying exactly that: khandha = loka = dukkha or in your terms, yes, the khandhas are the (epistemic/experiential) world. The argument for this is in Sue Hamilton’s book. But we mustn’t make the mistake of thinking that the khandhas are also the “objective world” or “reality”. We have no way of knowing this from the epistemology of early Buddhism, all we have access to is experience, and to some extent the processes that give rise to experience.
Cheers
J
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Dear Jayarava
Thanks so much for your explanation, with which I certainly agree.
I’m just not sure about this quoted statement of yours.
Are you suggesting this focus is wholesome, or just explaining an unwholesome focus that developed?
Best wishes
Unfortunately, if that is an accurate summary of her view, I think she misses an important aspect here, made clear in the summary sentence of the First Noble Truth. I would re-word it:
‘at least in some contexts, Pāli suttas refer to one’s clung-to experience (dukkha), arising from clinging-to the apparatus of experience (the khandhas) as being one’s world (loka)’
I would agree with this:
though I would leave out ‘human’ as, to me, just like ‘world’, ‘human’ depends on mental qualities, thus the Buddha negated human regarding himself, or any of the other modes of ‘being’ asked about.
https://suttacentral.net/en/an4.36
(the tense in the Buddha’s reply in this sutta, seems quite strange and I wonder if there has been corruption here by those still under the ‘I am conceit’.)
It was an historical observation. No value judgement was offered, nor should any be implied.
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Fair enough. Her book does goes into side of things and one should place too much weight on one quote taken out of context. It’s still the most important book about the khandhas every published in English.
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Thanks. I appreciate the first sentence, but value judging wholesome and unwholesome thought, word or deed and expressing it, is, for me, an act of wisdom and compassion and ought to be done. I understand it may not be so for you.
I think if you look at the references to suññatāvihāra in Pāli, you will have ample information to form a value judgement.
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Isn’t there a contradiction in your text in bold?
If there were none, how is one going to be released from rebirth?
Furthermore, on experience, isn’t there both a mundane and supramundane type of experience?
The other issue on this thread is the title itself, it is framed under the “Self” which reinforces the justification to a self. That which is beyond cannot be called a self because it implies something existent, which has death as its result…It is clearly not in line with the middle-way.
Text always help: Ud8.3…
There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated.
If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that escape from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned.
But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, escape from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned.
MN22…in bold: on what is beyond…
“There can be, monk,” said the Blessed One. "In that case, monk, someone does not have this view: ‘The universe is the Self… eternally the same shall I abide in that very condition.’ He then hears a Perfect One expounding the Teaching for the removal of all grounds for views, of all prejudices, obsessions, dogmas and biases; for the stilling of all (kamma-) processes, for the relinquishing of all substrata (of existence), for the extirpation of craving, for dispassion, cessation, Nibbaana.
He then does not think:
‘I shall be annihilated, I shall be destroyed! No longer shall I exist!’ Hence he does not grieve, is not depressed, does not lament; he does not beat his breast nor does he weep, and no dejection befalls him. Thus, monk, is there absence of anxiety about unrealities, in the internal.
No, what I tried to say was that I was putting forward a proof of self, and that proof of self was my own self. You said you wanted an argument for the self existing. I am my argument, for the sake of that argument.
Your response reminds me of “Indian philosophers”, though.
Wow. This discussion is lively. Ignorant house-holder here. Question. Self? I get the no-self anatta thing but since this a “discussion” I have a question. What is it that gets reincarnated? Is that a self? Show me some of your scholarly sutta quotations. Or better yet. What do you think? Please, with Metta, help the ignorant one, (me), on this topic. You guys are awesome.
Hector
Self is an extreme…drop the label. Teaching teaches via the middle-way so one can see for oneself…the illusion.
reincarnated:…slightly off-topic…but relevant…cycle of rebirth due to delusion…under SN 22.87: notes on Consciousness (established or unestablished)…and it is not a self.
The Blessed One then addressed the bhikkhus thus: “Come, bhikkhus, let us go to the Black Rock on the Isigili Slope, where the clansman Vakkali has used the knife.”
“Yes, venerable sir,” those bhikkhus replied. Then the Blessed One, together with a number of bhikkhus, went to the Black Rock on the Isigili Slope. The Blessed One saw in the distance the Venerable Vakkali lying on the bed with his shoulder turned.
Now on that occasion a cloud of smoke, a swirl of darkness, was moving to the east, then to the west, to the north, to the south, upwards, downwards, and to the intermediate quarters. The Blessed One then addressed the bhikkhus thus: “Do you see, bhikkhus, that cloud of smoke, that swirl of darkness, moving to the east, then to the west, to the north, to the south, upwards, downwards, and to the intermediate quarters?”
“Yes, venerable sir.”
“That, bhikkhus, is Mara the Evil One searching for the consciousness of the clansman Vakkali, wondering:
‘Where now has the consciousness of the clansman Vakkali been established?’
However, bhikkhus, with consciousness unestablished, the clansman Vakkali has attained final Nibbāna.”
On self…MN22:
“If there were a self, monks, would there be my self’s property?” — “So it is, Lord.” — “Or if there is a self’s property, would there by my self?” — “So it is, Lord.” — “Since in truth and in fact, self and self’s property do not obtain, O monks, then this ground for views, ‘The universe is the Self. That I shall be after death; permanent, stable, eternal, immutable; eternally the same shall I abide, in that very condition’ — is it not, monks, an entirely and perfectly foolish idea?” — "What else should it be, Lord? It is an entirely and perfectly foolish idea.
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First, there is no self now (but ‘only’ aggregates are present). So far, rebirth has been happening, despite the lack of a self.
Aggregates arise and pass away- this happens in strings of cause and effect, and it is this kind of cause driven continuity that is seen in a string of dominoes, which ‘moves forward’, from life to life.
with metta