A philosophical zombie is one recent thought experiment by philosophers to think that could there be a person who only behave externally as if they are conscious and have a mind, but actually inside, there’s no consciousness at all? Since we can have the intuition that this mindless zombie, which from the outside cannot be distinguished from a person with consciousness is nevertheless totally different is used to debunk behavior materialism, that is the mind is what is seen from behavior or some other kind of materialism.
By jumping to this when I say there’s no self, but there’s only mind and matter, it seems that you are equating very strongly to self = mind. When I said no self, I do not mean no mind. I do not mean the philosophical zombie above. Feelings, perception, volition, consciousness are there, they are not denied to exist, they are just not to be seen as a self.
The awakened ones would say living in a way without a sense of self is much more liberating and happy compared to having to lug the baggage of self conception along.
It’s a whole other debate about usage of the conventional vs ultimate truth, I still find it very useful and it fits in many suttas. Like arahants can use the term “self” without misunderstanding it. I am pretty sure that conventional truth vs ultimate truth doesn’t say that suffering is only conventional, since the 4 noble truths are impersonal, they are the language of ultimate truth as well. Thus the words of the Buddha, it is only suffering that arises and ceases, (implying no self, no one there).
I just read the sutta in the Pali before I see this topic, just nice.
For them, everything that’s felt, being no longer relished, will become cool right here.
Tassa idheva, bhikkhave, sabbavedayitāni anabhinanditāni sīti bhavissanti.
I think the key is will become cool. It means not in the present life, but is a future tense, and the Pali verb supports it. So it means after death, everything becomes cooled. “Right here” I think it means the realization that there will be no more future life is known right in this life. Seeing the difference between the two as well, there’s no mention of the 5 sense faculties (why not 6? I dunno) for the Nibbāna element without remainder. It strongly suggests that without remainder is not within the time of living for the arahant.
Not every law which governs matter needs to govern the mind as well. Eg. location is not a property of the mind. Also, the cessation of perception and feeling is basically no mind, just body left, as well as the Brahma realm of non-percipient being shows that mind can totally cease and the body is still there.
I would be critical of people using the term energy to describe what a mind is and then use the physics law of conservation of energy to somehow show that rebirth is there. First of all, to show conservation, we need a way to quantify what is mental energy, how is it transferred between chemical energy, mental energy and heat and so on. As well as this blocks the notion of Nibbana as total cessation, ending of rebirth. If mind must go on, rebirth must exist, if mind cannot not go on, rebirth cannot end.