Okay, why not. It’s worth a thought.
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What double negation law are you referring to?
It is blue
It is green
It is both blue and green
It is neither blue nor green
Does that break a double negation law?
Im just not sure what you mean.
Suffering …arises… understood by Dependant Origination…and ceases with Nibbana. No Self of any kind present, is what the Buddha was saying.
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I’m thinking about the application of this in the context of existential statements: x exists, x does not exist, x does not not exist == x exists, etc.
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These are amongst the most common and most deeply integrated statments in buddhism.
The 4th jhana is such a statement.
The formless attainmnet of neither perception nor non perception is such a statement.
The status of the buddha after death are such statments.
Practically the whole of the ebt is an elaboration of this dialectic.
I am certain there probably are fruitful discussions to be had about its relation to logic, but so far i am yet to hear them, usually because peoples ideas about western logic are woefully naive amd simplistic.
Do I exist?
Do I not exist?
Do I have both existant and non existant parts?
Do I have neither existant nor non ecistant parts, being something outside of “existance and non existance”?
Theres nothing illogical about any of these questions.
Is the world ultimately painful?
Is the world ultimately pleasurable?
Is the world ultimately both pleasureable and painful?
Is the world ultimately neither pleasurable nor painful?
Again, nothing here is “illogical”
Do you think that this kind of reasoning apply to the aggregates process as well ?
Thanks @PjYuktavadin i see what you mean now.
With regards to existential statments they are usually handled in one of two ways, either the usual 4 part progression is maintained in which case it is usually easiest to read the parts merelogically, that is:
Does X exist.
Does X not exist.
Are there parts of X that exist and other parts that dont exist.
Does X have neither existant nor non existant parts.
The other way is to simply collapse the terms to 2 as in
Does X exist
Does X not exist
This is convenient when theres nothing to be had out of the other 2 steps in the dialectic.
Some general comments:
If i am wondering if its raining outside in my garden, and i open my window, i may be suprised, especially in spring, to find it raining in one half of my garden and not raining in the other.
If my wife asks from the kitchen, “is it raining in the garden?” And I say “its both raining and not raining in the garden!” I am not being illogical, i am merely stating the facts.
To get to a logical problem my wife would have to say, “I don’t mean is it raining in parts of the garden, i mean is it raining in the garden at all?”
To which i mist reply, dissapointed at her narrow mindedness, “yes.” 
The point is that “logical laws” are things applied to logical systems, even as far back as Aristotle, there would be no sense applying the law of excluded middle outside the syllogism, say to stoic sentences for example, it just wouldnt have worked.
For there to be a logical issue there needs to be more than just the presence of “contradictions” or “negations” for example, i might say:
“He existed for a while as a rock and roll god, before heroin and alcohol took his too short life and he existed no more.”
He existed then he didn’t, therfore, in the story, he both existed and not existed.
Theres nothing illogical about the story.
Theres no law of contradiction thats being broken.
In almost every case in the ebt these abyakata type statments and practices can be read straightforwardly, occasionally there is a need to invoke a merelogical sense (a relationship between parts and wholes) but apart form that theres really nowhere much that abstruse questions of logic really need to figure prominently.
Finally constructive logic is absolutely not a “fringe” phenomena. I dominates maths and compter science and philosophical logic has been slow to catch up.
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Yes. In fact i think explicitly in some places.
Certainly to vedana at least.
Thank you, now I understand what you mean, I myself am a constructivist in logic and mathematics.
But I think this existential tetralemma does not apply to aggregates, for example. My point is: the application of the tetralemma always seems contextual, qualified and not universal.
I believe it is valid to say, for example, that aggregates do exist and do not fall into the tetralemma. I suspect that the tetralemma when applied to everything indiscriminately leads to an absurd ineffabilist position.
@Jasudho , please, I would like to know your opinion about that.
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It is certainly in my opinion an ineffabilist position if by that you mean a quietist position.
The buddha explicitly states, dozens if not hundreds of times, in multiple contexts, that some things should not be said of (many, most? all? at least several lists of very broad) phenomena, see here for a survey:
The buddha explicitly states that some things should be said, of most of these same phenomena, see here:
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/the-great-escape/
I think this is a Theravada position and I think it is not supported by the weight of evidence in the EBT.
The aggregates are a later scholastic adaptation of the teachings that spread in the late pre-sectarian period and must threrefor be compatible with the abyakata/nisaranca framework which preceded it. for a lengthy textual examination of the basic evidence see here:
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/are-khandhas-early-or-late-ebt/
At SN33.1 for example we have:
“What is the cause, Master Gotama, what is the reason why these various misconceptions arise in the world? That is:
“ko nu kho, bho gotama, hetu, ko paccayo, yānimāni anekavihitāni diṭṭhigatāni loke uppajjanti—the cosmos is eternal, or not eternal, or finite, or infinite; the soul and the body are the same thing, or they are different things; after death, a Realized One exists, or doesn’t exist, or both exists and doesn’t exist, or neither exists nor doesn’t exist.”
sassato lokoti vā, asassato lokoti vā, antavā lokoti vā, anantavā lokoti vā, taṁ jīvaṁ taṁ sarīranti vā, aññaṁ jīvaṁ aññaṁ sarīranti vā, hoti tathāgato paraṁ maraṇāti vā, na hoti tathāgato paraṁ maraṇāti vā, hoti ca na ca hoti tathāgato paraṁ maraṇāti vā, neva hoti na na hoti tathāgato paraṁ maraṇāti vā”ti?“Vaccha, it is because of not knowing form, its origin, its cessation, and the practice that leads to its cessation
“Rūpe kho, vaccha, aññāṇā, rūpasamudaye aññāṇā, rūpanirodhe aññāṇā, rūpanirodhagāminiyā paṭipadāya aññāṇā; that these various misconceptions arise in the world. evamimāni anekavihitāni diṭṭhigatāni loke uppajjanti— sassato lokoti vā …pe… neva hoti na na hoti tathāgato paraṁ maraṇāti vāti. This is the cause, this is the reason.” Ayaṁ kho, vaccha, hetu, ayaṁ paccayo, yānimāni anekavihitāni diṭṭhigatāni loke uppajjanti— sassato lokoti vā, asassato lokoti vā …pe… neva hoti na na hoti tathāgato paraṁ maraṇāti vā”ti.
The teaching repeats itself for the other five aggregates of course, but the central point made is clear, to fully know an aggregate is to fully know that it doesn’t exist, not exist both or neither, rather it has its conditional beginning, it’s conditional end, it’s appeal, it’s repulsion, and it’s trancendence/escape.
This is the teaching of the buddha, the complete statement of which (apart from a few dangling technicalities) can be found at DN1 and DN2.
The aggregates are no more or less real than the self or anything else we deal with in this life.
Hi,
Will IM you tomorrow. 
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Been thinking about this since yesterday, @Dogen and @yeshe.tenley.
I agree that it is a nice hypothesis, because it does seem that the Buddha in some Suttas expresses that he teaches “nothing” on the subjects that in other Suttas he uses the negations on.
However I think it is far-fetched to project Frege’s “constructive” logic (if there is such a thing, and if it still deserves to be called “logic”) back to the historical Buddha and Sangha.
It seems to me that it is completely sufficient to assume that the Buddha’s negations were just his way of teaching nothing on a subject. He may have done so to still teach “something” verbally and not lose the attention of the students asking these questions, or for other rhetoric reasons.
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The Buddha Teaches the Way to Enlightenment, Nibbana, Stream Entry, and Arhatship.
I think when Buddha is applying tetrelama he’s denying a very specific concept of “existence”, or of “real”, “reality”, etc.
So, personally, I don’t see reason to believe that Buddha is applying tetralema to any and non qualified notion of “existence”, “real”, etc.
If one says that Buddha is saying something like the tetralema without specifically qualify the notion of existence, etc., then I really don’t understand what one is saying. I mean, I don’t see the meaning, not talking about truth or whatever.
Sounds like if one asks Buddha “are you Ven. talking about any kind of existence?”, and Buddha says “well, no, neither, neither neither, etc”. It’s like meaningless.
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Sorry what? i don’t understand what your saying.
There are a number of reasons why he could have done this.
Not having an answer to a question and admitting to it could have been interpreted as a weakness by his students.
Also, skepticism or ᾰ̓πορῐ́ᾱ in regards to a certain topic can not be expressed verbally. If you think about it, saying neither this nor that is about the closest you can get.
That said, this is just a hypothesis. You may find different interpretations of the passages with these double negations by different schools of Buddhism, who interpret them in the light of their own doctrine.
One should also not forget that it was common for Greek contemporaries of the Buddha to have exoterical teachings whose esoterical meaning would only be disclosed to initiates. Could such also have been the case with the first Sangha? Just a freak thought
What I’m saying is one cannot affirm or deny something non-contextually, in a non qualified way. So, when Buddha applies tetralema, Buddha is not talking about all kind of notions of existence, reality, etc., because it would be meaningless to do so.
(It remember a little the debate between Tsongkhapa and Gorampa. )
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Anatta can involve a melting away of the ego leaving a heaping mass of perceptions in the form of sights and sounds, etc.
The experience can be marked by a total lack of coherency, the melting of perceptions into a single “slurry” of suffering, and the prolonged angst of not being able to even remotely “put a pin” on anything.
There is no “owner” of the experience and no meaning or purpose to the experience. For that reason it is entirely dukkha. As one of the three marks there is nothing positive to the negative feeling of anatta.
Positive aspects of anatta like ego dissolution are different, I think, than the way it is expressed as a mark of existence.
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So, if anatta is an experience of all of that stuff (melting of perceptions etc.), then when you don’t experience that stuff you must experience atta. Thus, you imply that there is atta. AFAIK, Buddha taught that every phenomena is anatta, and not just when you have this fancy meditative experience.
Help me out here with the logic
A = B
Anatta = Melting of perceptions, etc.
Therefore:
Not A = Not B
Atta = not melting of perceptions.
???
So anything that is “not anatta” is “atta”?
It’s all anatta. There’s just varying degrees to which one experiences it.
This logic you present seems flawed. For example:
Red = the colour of a certain poppy
Not Red = everything else
???