I don't get Buddhism

“Is The Buddhist ‘No-Self’ Doctrine Compatible With Pursuing Nirvana?”
Katie Javanaud asks whether there is a contradiction at the heart of Buddhism.

Once again [in my view] this is basically a scholastic assessment of the “self” that amounts to a general description of nothing in particular. One has a clear “conception” of the self because it revolves almost entirely around concepts defining and defending other concepts. To expose something as a “convenient fiction”, we have to examine the choices that “I” actually make in a particular context and differentiate what we can know to be in fact true and what is merely a personal opinion based on a specific set of assumptions regarding human interactions “in general”.

And, even here, to speak of, “when Buddhist assert the doctrine of ‘no self’”, is in itself based on the assumption that there is in fact only one way that all Buddhists around the globe think about this. Even only as a concept.

Okay, but then take this person and situate him or her in a set of circumstances whereby in interacting with others the dots are connected between the “good life” on this side of the grave, karma, and one’s fate on the other side of the grave.

As this might all unfold in regard to my “illegal immigrant” example above, or in regard to an ensuing political upheaval as is unfolding for particular Buddhists in Hong Kong.

An “exhaustive analysis” of “heaps, aggregates, collections, groupings” pertaining to “forms, sensations, perceptions, mental activity and consciousness”?

That sort of analysis?

Okay, but then bring this assessment out into the world in which Buddhists interact with others who see the “self” in very, very different ways. What then? If only [for now] on this side of the grave.

You have asserted at length. You have consistantly conflated correlation with cause. You have repeatedly ignored the complexity and development of religions. You have asserted things about the mental processes of people long dead with great certainty. You ignore facets of religion - in practices, texts, self-reporting, ceremonies, commentaries - that do not fit your hypothesis, even when these vastly outweigh the presence of evidence that your hypothesis is correct and complete.

There are basic philosophical discussion practices and concepts that you do not understand. Your posts are riddled with fallacies and conflate possibility with certainty, contributing factors (at best) with solitary causes, assertion with coherent argument, parts you select for the whole (of texts for example), book knowledge with a more complete knowledge and your own sense of certainty with evidence for others.

It is not even remotely close to what a decent professor would accept as a solid opinion paper.

You have a speculative hypothesis. Which is peachy, if it is presented as that. and then if you actually deal with counterarguments in specific rather than dismissing them with appeals to incredulity. Or with someone disagreeing with you means they think there is no unconscious mind or fear of death. Strawmen, red herrings. In fact your posts provide excellent examples of many fallacies and evasions.

Look up, cognitive dissonance, please, and just consider for a moment that you might not want to notice what a great many people have, in common, said about the flaws in your arguments might be the case.

Not for our sake, but for yours.

My main point is whatever the forms and facets of religion which I have accounted for, they are all reducible to the subconscious fear of death response to avoid death.

The above is all talk but no specific counter to the premises I have raised.

Cognitive dissonance is actually a central element and mainstay of my argument.
I have not discussed it in detail here but have done in other threads.

Sequentially… that is the basic rule of logic, i.e. one premise must follow from the previous to the conclusion, otherwise it is non-sequitor.

There is no absolute determination, but from the beginning of evolution to the present, all events are deterministic, thus sequential.

You need to update your knowledge on the neural circuits of primal fear and emotional fear, plus the amydala short-circuit that ranged from the subconscious and conscious.
What is critical here is the conscious fear of death is heavily suppressed.

On the point of agencity.
Note this apply to those earlier group of theists who founded the concept of god as an agent [driven by agenticity] and invented holy books to establish God as the ultimate agent.
Those theists [then and now] who later cling to a God do not rely on their pattern recognition and agenticity in relation to theism.
These theists merely cling to what is presented them with a promise of eternal life which is directly driven by the subconscious-fear-of-death responses based on faith, not by agencity.
Their agenticity may drive them to see the image of Jesus in a sandwich, surface of the moon, but not of God.
The idea of the ontological God is not based on agenticity but by solely from crude reasoning.

Do you agree, it is certain [scientific wise] human do not have instincts?
It would be crazy if you do.
At most, that is only valid from a different perspective.

You made a misinterpretation “humans not having instincts”.

Note the wiki point;

By the year 2000, a survey of the 12 best selling textbooks in Introductory Psychology revealed only one reference to instincts, and that was in regard to Sigmund Freud’s referral to the “id” instincts.[citation needed] In this sense, the term ‘instinct’ appeared to have become outmoded for introductory textbooks on human psychology.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct#History

I would not depend on this wiki point [the contributor seem myopic] too much.

It only the used of the word ‘instinct’ but not what ‘instinct’ actually represent in psychology and neuroscience, i.e. “Instinct or innate behavior is the inherent inclination of a living organism towards a particular complex behavior.”

If you google the term ‘instinct’ it is still very popularly used within the psychology community, e.g.

How Does Instinct Work?
Instinct involves inherited behavior. How can behaviors be inherited?
psychologytoday.com/intl/bl … tinct-work

Actually, your “human beings do not have instinct” to counter my premises is very cheap, based on a falsehood and deceptive.

If you read the ‘History’ section at the beginning is this;

Jean Henri Fabre (1823-1915), an entomologist, considered instinct to be any behavior which did not require cognition or consciousness to perform.
An interest in innate behaviors arose again in the 1950s with Konrad Lorenz and Nikolaas Tinbergen, who made the distinction between instinct and learned behaviors. Our modern understanding of instinctual behavior in animals owes much to their work.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct# … al_biology

Human beings inherited most the animal and mammalian neural functions via evolution, the above qualities are not likely to have changed in relation to instincts between animals and human beings. At most there are some additions at the frills but not the substance of it.

It is still true, human instincts do not require cognition or consciousness to perform.

It is said in the article, 4000 types of instinct were identified.
When I talk of the subconscious-of-fear-of-death instinct or responses, it is a very deep primal instinct [the very early] which had evolved long before and inherited by human being via evolution.
Such an instinct definitely preceded the pattern recognition of agencity which require ‘cognition’.
Note the above point, instincts do not require cognition or consciousness to perform, in this case, more so with the primal instinct of the subconscious-of-fear-of-death instinct.

You and KT made a lot of complains with my arguments and presentation.
Your lack and incapable to grasp my argument is more to do with your limitations than my lack of evidences. It is that I have thrown in too much [necessary] information and knowledge herein that you are unable to see them in a whole picture and perspective.

Prismatic,

Where did I specifically claim that human-beings don’t have instincts?

I specifically stated that it has been argued that human being don’t have instincts. One of the points I was referring to was this excerpt from the wiki article, which you seem to have missed;

I’m not sure if human beings have instincts, there are arguments both for and against it.

This;

Requires evidence.

As I had stated it is matter of perspective, i.e. Maslow’s perspective.
When Maslow (1908 – June 8, 1970) was active, the neurosciences were in the very early infancy phase, thus he [a psychologist] did not have knowledge of finer workings of the brain.

There is no way babies and infant can override these instincts.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instinct# … _in_humans

Adult humans has the cognitive power to modulate the impulses of the instincts and primal instincts but there is no way the inherent and innate instincts from the DNA-RNA could be changed.
In most cases, many adults are controlled by their instincts rather than they overriding their primal and other inherent, innate and hardwired instincts.

In this case, Maslow’s view on instinct is insignificant to current views of the inherent innate instincts.

Prismatic,

This is the last time I’m going to ask. Could you please provide the evidence which substantiates your claim: “The subconscious fear of death is the root cause of all religions.”

If you don’t provide it, then I’m going to assume that you can’t. If you perceive that you already have and it has been missed, could you then summarise your evidential points into a coherent post. Until you do this, it will be difficult to move forward.

What sort of evidence do you need?
I don’t think you know what evidences you are look for in this case.

In any case, I have provided justified argument and sufficient evidences.

Btw, my objective is not to ensure you grasp the whole argument since I am aware you will not be able to do so. My purpose is thus to hope you can offer any refutations from your perspective and hopefully from others as well.

For example, your point ‘human beings do not have instinct’ took me by surprise and I got interested in that because if true could counter my premise which is based on instincts, i.e. primal instincts from the subconscious mind.
Upon further consideration and reading, the point your raised above from Maslow is not significant to my argument.

Do you have any more of such points that could shake the foundation of my premises?

Prismatic,

What I’m asking you for, is information from sources other than yourself, which demonstrate that your claim is valid.

Continually debating this on the basis of what you’ve argued is pointless. Let’s assess how the evidence relates to your claim.

I have given my arguments supported by premises which are true and I have provided loads of external sources with links to support these premises.
Problem is they are too much and beyond your ken and ability to tie them up to the premises. I am not going through them again and wasting time.
If you are not convinced, just let it be.

Prismatic,

Then I guess this is where our discussion draws to a close, as there is no point in continuing on the basis of arguments.

Prismatic,

I would of let it be if you hadn’t of said this;

This sounds like an equivocation. However, I’m not the only interlocutor in this discussion. The other participants will be able to “tie them [the evidences] to the premises”. Or is your claim that no one involved in this discussion can? And seriously, if you can validate such a huge claim with a few clicks, how is that wasting time?

You should consider the possibility that my ability could be more than you’re able to recognise. Arbitrarily deciding that the evidence to support your argument is beyond my “ken and ability”, and therefore not presenting it, is ridiculous.

I thought that you might respond like this, as it was always clear that you were not going to provide the evidence I asked for, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt. If you actually had it, you would of whipped it out faster than if Halle Berry was in your bedroom.

But the actual problem he cannot tie them to it, so he doesn’t do it.

He refers to research, but does not, and actually cannot, demonstrate that what they indicate is his hypothesis is true.

So he blames you for his own inablility to make the full arguments.

And this is after saying that those arguments are proofs - which shows an ignorance of science right off the bat calling them proofs - but is shirking his responsibility as the person with a hypothesis.

It is beyond his ken to tie together what he thinks is obvious.

And it is rude for him to blame you for his own failings.

And the reason he can’t make an actual coherent argument is in part because the evidence does not support his hypothesis and if fact there is more evidence that other things are the primary causes of religion.

KT,

You provide a more rounded summary which I agree with. In future, take my silence as an agreement. I will only comment on your posts if there is something I disagree with or really feel the need to say something. If I keep saying that you’re right, it will be perceived as a bias .

This is crucial.

I am not here to provide a totally coherent and detailed argument which will take a lot of my time.
So far I have provided information up to the limit I am willing to go.
I have intention to write a book on it where I will provide the full information.

Note that this was stated after Prismatic was asked to provide the evidence which validates his claim.

“Is The Buddhist ‘No-Self’ Doctrine Compatible With Pursuing Nirvana?”
Katie Javanaud asks whether there is a contradiction at the heart of Buddhism.

Clearly we have to be wary of arguments in which the conclusions are predicated by and large on the premises. Especially when the premises themselves are constructed almost entirely out of the definitions and the meaning assigned to the words.

And which of the four points above is the exception to that rule? The logic is sound because one is expected to agree with the definitions used to give meaning to the words.

Always coming back [in religious narratives] to the most fundamental premise of all: The existence of God and/or Enlightenment.

The only thing missing of course is an actual moment to moment description of this unfolding as one goes about choosing behaviors. It is all just taken for granted that in relation to the conclusion derived from the premises above it’s how it, uh, works.

Completely obviating the need to make any distinctions at all between the either/or me and the is/ought me. It’s all at one intellectually with the impermanence of the self itself.

Next up: the argument from control…

And of course this is a valid option. To not write something complete. But then one should not also present what one has written as ‘proofs’, nor should one say one has refuted all counterclaims and critique when one has not. I think the arguments have large missing steps, even when compared to other arguments made here, but it is perfectly reasonable to stay with something more like an opinion essay. However these can actually be more solidly written and certain do not constitute proofs. And his approach to dialogue has no, in general, show an ability to interact with counter-ideas - since he tends to simply reassert or dismiss - nor to acknowledge anything counter to his ideas as having any validity. Which puts him not only at odds with scholars in the fields he claims final knowledge in - which doesn’t mean he’s wrong but needs to be dealt with - but also makes him a less than adequate discussion partner - to a degree that leads me to think that discussion is not really the goal, lecturing is.

“Is The Buddhist ‘No-Self’ Doctrine Compatible With Pursuing Nirvana?”
Katie Javanaud asks whether there is a contradiction at the heart of Buddhism.

I think this is an important point in and of itself. How close or how far is Buddhism from the “common discourse” that seems to sustain human interaction from day to day? Obviously, this is far more a subjective/intersubjective social, political and economic contraption as it pertains to living the “good [virtuous] life” here and now; and pertaining to the fate of “I” there and then beyond the grave. But there are still many, many things we either can or cannot alter [control] about ourselves that are applicable to all mere mortals regardless of their religious or spiritual bent. We share these things in common. Starting with the need to sustain our very existence from day to day and ending with the behaviors we choose that may well result in our ceasing to exist altogether.

The “human condition” that we are all a part of.

All we need to assume here is that human autonomy is an actual thing.

This is precisely the sort of assessment that [to me] amounts to intellectual gibberish when attempts are made to describe in detail how it unfolds for a particular person in a particular context choosing particular behaviors. Here there are specific things about our self that dissatisfy us for specific [personal] reasons embedded in our understanding of a specific set of circumstances. We either have or do not have options to change those things.

Instead, where “I” becomes increasingly more problematic is when that which comes to dissatisfy us, is thought by others to be something that, on the contrary, ought to satisfy us very much. This can revolve around the food we eat or the music we listen to or the films we like or the values we choose that precipitate behaviors deemed to be either the right or the wrong thing to do.

The latter of course precipitating the most profound consequences in our lives. “I” here becomes attached to conflicting moral and political narratives that can result in any number ghastly newspaper headlines as some strive to propel the behaviors of others in a direction they are convinced reflects the only “right thing to do”.