Components of existence in the 21 century

The Watercooler
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I think it’s about knowing that self is not multiplicity. But the oneness that is talked that one has to remove attachment towards when reaching it.

But removing attachment to it why? Isnt it because it cause the illusion of multiplicity?

Although you see it correctly as unity. You still have to let it go to let go of multiplicity. It’s like a giving someone a hand shake. Than letting it go. To be yourself. That is free to move in any direction.

Imagine a person hand shaking too long. You can’t wait to be free.

In the same way, householder, a disciple of the noble ones considers this point: ‘The Blessed One has compared sensuality to a chain of bones, of much stress, much despair, & greater drawbacks.’ Seeing this with right discernment, as it actually is, then avoiding the equanimity coming from multiplicity, dependent on multiplicity, he develops the equanimity coming from singleness, dependent on singleness, where sustenance/clinging for the baits of the world ceases without trace.
— [MN 54]

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If the Buddha was around now, might he also have used some concepts and experiments from the relatively new field of consciousness science, I’m wondering? Here’s a taster from my newsfeed this morning:

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Might develop into another topic here. I would like to comment on the article you put there.

In regarding virtual or even simulated world as real as the base reality, then in essence it’s the same as regarding base reality as unreal as the simulated world. Without an essence behind it. Emptiness. All that we know are via the 6 sense bases, whatever the relationship of the reality which makes the 6 sense bases have a coherent model of reality, that doesn’t matter as much.

The notion of real tends to evoke the eternalism leaning, more grasping. Seeing essencelessness is more of ungrasping, letting go.

On virtual interaction, Chalmers says we should know if we are interacting with AI or human, then it also open up a path to see emptiness of beings.

In the near future, it’ll be not possible to tell apart AI and humans via purely behaviour clues, so a label should be used. Yet, if we regard AI as unreal, not a sentient being, there can be a pathway to the opening of unkind, uncompassionate behaviour towards something which looks and sounds like another sentient being.

If we would regard AI as deserving of kindness etc, then in a sense, it’s seeing that even empty beings are worthy of kindness. And applying the doctrine of Buddhism, we see that even human avatars are also empty, empty of souls. Empty of inherent existence, yet still worthy of kindness.

Although strictly speaking, in the Buddhist sense, if AI is not conscious (which someone with mind reading powers can verify and check), then there’s no mind behind the actions, and there’s no feelings, thus no issue of kicking it like kicking a rock or a ball.

It’s just that for the non-Buddhists, some might confuse mind=soul=self, this could be a method for them? Nah, I rather they learn the proper Dhamma.

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Yet Clark and Chalmers proposed something very different: an “active externalism” based on the hypothesis that humans are able to outsource aspects of thought and memory to external artefacts – and thus that these artefacts can literally become parts of human minds

Reminds me of Ajahn Brahm’s story of the little girl who said the biggest thing in the world was her eye, because an elephant, a skyscraper and her daddy could all fit in there.

Do you think that the ideas being discussed in this article are so different from other forms of skepticism which have been around for centuries? I don’t know that much about things like global skepticism and Cartesian skeptism but Crash Course Philosophy leads me to believe this isn’t so new.

The questions I have coming up about a virtual world is ’ could you get enlightened in a virtual world?’ and ‘could you “see things as they truly are”?’. My first thought is you could, but then, maybe you couldn’t. It all depends on the programming! But if this is the simulation we are in, then the rules of the game don’t change and the 3 characteristics still apply.

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there’s nothing new under the sun is there? :wink:

I do like this bit though …

Chalmers’ own thinking drew on these insights, proposing a “non-reductive” approach to the hard problem via the suggestion that every form of information processing entails an irreducible component constituting the basis of conscious experience. According to this view, the relatively simple information-processing taking place in the brain of a mouse yields relatively simple experiences, the immensely complex information-processing taking place in a human brain yields immensely complex experiences, and, most provocatively of all, even the minimal kind of information-process taking place in a device like a thermostat may yield a minimal kind of experience. Consciousness is, in other words, an inherent property of the Universe itself: something that cannot be explained merely in terms of matter.

And I do like experiments (magic tricks) like the rubber hand … Form is impermanent … :slight_smile:

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