I don't get Buddhism

You’re clutching so tightly on to certain ideas.

Don’t hang on to the one true path. Don’t hang on to immortality or salvation.

Buddhist practice could help loosen the grip.

It might feel good.

I’m not clutching tightly to any ideas – mine, yours or theirs. Instead, I’m clutching to the possibility [however slim it seems to me now] that one of us will be able to demonstrate something – anything – truly substantive about the relationship between morality here and now and immortality there and then.

And though you may scoff, no one is more committed to the hope that my own ideas will be shown [by anyone] to be wrong. That there is in fact “one true path” able to obviate conflicting goods and deliver us instead to something analogous to the promised land on the other side.

Maybe even the possibility that in a No God world, the arguments of the sociopaths and the “show me the money” nihilists who run the planet, can be subsumed in an actual deontological political agenda rooted not in dasein but in categorical and imperative moral dictums.

Moral mandates actually able to be enforced.

Besides, lots and lots and lots of things are out there for us if the whole point is just to “feel good”.

Nope, for me the search here is basically for a demonstrable assessment able to convince me that those who argue, “in the absence of God, all things are permitted” are full of shit.

That and something – anything – that might reasonably be construed as the antidote to oblivion.

That makes sense.

I think one interesting thing about Iamb’s positions/experiences is how well they fits Buddhism. His sense of self. He puts ‘I’ often in citation marks. He talks about experiencing himself as fractured and fragmented. In some way he has experienced things that people do in fact experience in Buddhist meditation. That the self is a batching of fragmentary conglomerates. He also mentions impermanence a lot - though not using that word. That what he believes today he might not believe tomorrow. This also relates closely to what many Buddhists experience and belief, that the self is not a thing, is not permanent (even within a lifetime) and is very contingent.

In all his reading and slapdab posting he does not seem to notice that he has reached at the very least many of the experiences categorized in Buddhism and shares Buddhism’s sense of their importance.

Now I am not a buddhist, and while I have done the practices and still do things that bear some resemblance to Buddhist practices, there are difference and I am not an advocate for the system. But it seems to me what we have is someone who has found out a layer of experience that Buddhists necessarily experience and have spent thousands of years trying to reduce the suffering of them. One major difference is Iamb is seeking to reform his Self and Buddhists are not. In fact they consider this part of the cause of suffering, though certainly not the only one. It seems odd to me in the extreme that he wouldn’t want to be in the presence of people who have a system addressing the exact pain he is describing and which they note in ways very similarly to how he does and differently from how, say, Abrahamic religions do.

He’d prefer to discussion reincarnation and Karma with non-Buddhists who happen to know more about Buddhism than he does, rather than actually learn by doing with people who have spent decades on process they think have helped them precisely with his pet issues.

Any simple read of an idiot’s guide to Buddhism or a fairly short book on Buddhism would have shown him is kinship with some of the core ideas of Buddhism. But after posting random stuff off the internet for months he still can’t recognize this. And I pointed out some of this earlier in this thread.

But there is nothing wrong with his approach to learning, according to him. It is either the only method (since he has limited mobility) or the best one or he just ignores others.

Well, it’s not working well or he would have noticed a connection between his thought and Buddhism.

And it should be noted that scientists also, like the Abrahamic religions and many other religious and secular approaches, to not have the focus that Buddhism share. Generally speaking they do not focus on such intra-self and temporal self inconsistancies and the suffering this causes.

Followed by a listing of ideas possibilities that you’re clutching. :confused:

Taking a look at one example:

Why do you need this? Why do you want this?

What would happen if you let go of it?

What if it didn’t matter if “moral mandates” are enforced or not?

How would that feel?

Well, he is just another stooge, right? :wink:

On the other hand, I don’t have access to enlightenment and karma here and now culminating in reincarnation and [possibly] Nirvana there and then.

Not unlike you, right?

Ah, but only in regard to moral and political values in the is/ought world. Whereas in my interactions with others in the either/or world, I don’t feel fractured and fragmented at all.

Not unlike you, right?

Okay, let’s look at the world that we actually live in.

Across the globe there are endless clashes between those who insist this is the right thing to do and others who insist that is the right thing to do. Culminating in, say, wars.

Or genocide.

Conflicting goods, let’s call them.

The human suffering down through the ages has been nothing short of ghastly, horrific, agonizing.

Some with God, others without God.

Now, imagine instead a world where we were in fact able to establish an objective morality that all rational people were willing to abide by because somehow this morality was, in fact, both demonstrable and able to be enforced.

Only for the objectivists out in the world that we live in now, this already exists. In their heads. Then, from time to time, some of them gain access to political power in order to make sure that you share their political agenda too.

History, let’s call it.

And that’s before we get to the moral nihilists who own and operate, among other things, the global economy.

Well, that’s not going to happen. So moving on … what can you do in the present for yourself?

Well, that’s your approach to it. My approach is to ponder what some think can be done coming into conflict with what others think can be done. The part embedded in dasein and conflicting goods. Then the part where the objectivists among us move beyond what they think can be done and insist in turn that they know what should be done.

"Then, from time to time, some of them gain access to political power in order to make sure that you share their political agenda too.

History, let’s call it."

Yeah, people who you don’t agree with get power. You gotta live with that. And I don’t mean live with anger.

Well, you have to be realist about what is doable.

Does your pondering achieve anything?

Again, my interest is in exploring with them why and how we come to conflicting assessments regarding particular contexts. To what extent are they convinced that “right makes might” – their own – is the one true order of the day.

And, no, sometimes you don’t have to live with it. Sometimes anger can be used to yank that power away.

But then what? Only to replace it with your own “right makes might” agenda?

That is when I introduce the objectivists among us to dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

As for the “realists” among us, some are more “fractured and fragmented” than others.

As for what is “doable”, some have access to more options than others.

Sure. Since you don’t have some magic power which gives you access to the one true agenda, the optimal agenda, what else could you do than to replace it with your own agenda.

So? Somebody is still going to implement his/her agenda.

I don’t know what you except to happen.

You manage to post on the internet so you are not entirely without options.

Um. You didn’t respond to anything I wrote here. I don’t even know what the phrase ‘access to enlightenment and karma’ would possibly mean. So, responding as if I said anything of the sort is odd.

I haven’t made any claims about having access to those things, don’t know what you mean by ‘access’, am not a Buddhist. Not responding to me.

Bizarre so your fragmented and fractured state in relation to morals has no effect on how you feel in interactions with other people. Morals have to do amongst other things with how one should behave in relation to others and often how one judges their actions. But being utterly fragmented and fractured about morals has no effect on your interactions with others.

But most important: I note that you do not mention you’re putting I in citation marks: ‘I’ - all the time. And all your tying this in to identity, in general!!! Noticed, again, that you avoid stuff, make up stuff, can’t really be bothered to interact with others. Perhaps that’s a sign that you’re fragmentation around morals has no affect on your interactions with others.

We can just ignore statements of yours like…

Note the generalization over human interactions in total. Note the refernce to identity (not just for example moral conclusions or something else)
and…

Note the inclusion of social. Note the conclusion related to life in general.

and what is a whole thread here…
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=173716&p=2186078&hilit=identity+real#p2186078
that first paragraph being also extremely Buddhist.
and your second post is also Buddhist and note that morals are not even peripheral.

You’re not honest. You are not an honest person, here at ILP at least, Iamb. Not that you’ll ever ever admit it even on the smallest little mistakes, let alone hilarious large issue contradictions like these.

and more…

That sentence there about acknowledging that identity is an existential contraption that is always subject to change without notice is extremely Buddhist. And precisely what I was referring to that you deny above.
and

Where, yes, there are moral values mentioned, but the fragmentation is obviously related to the whole spectrum of the self AND BEHAVIOR which in your mind does not come up in interactions with others. Note: ‘truth’!!! was included in what is affected, not just virtue and justice.

About, lol, what morals to believe in, but not how to be with other people, the interactions with whom you consider meaningless, a conclusion that also, somehow magically, does not affect your interactions with other people.

My guess is you will feel tempted to quote yourself from other posts where it seems you only meant the effects had to do with some mental assessment of correct values as if this somehow erases what you have said many times.

My guess is you will also wonder where this interest comes on my part. It is fascinating to watch you deny things even when presented with overwhelming concrete evidence.

But the objectivists don’t need “some magic power”. On the contrary, all they need is to believe…to believe that their own moral and political agenda already reflects the optimal triumph for the human race. Think back to, say, the mid-twentieth century, when the “right makes might” fascists did battle with the “right makes might” communists.

Or today when the “right makes might” conservatives do battle with the “right makes might” liberals. The anything goes factions.

That’s how objectivism works out in the real world when those who claim it gain access to actual power.

What would you command if you had access to it. Here for example.

Of course. If I am unable to persuade them that objectivism is rooted in the manner in which I convey it in the arguments I pose in my signature threads. On the other hand, I may well succeed. But instead of embracing moderation, negotiation and compromise, they choose moral nihilism instead. The sort preferred by the sociopaths, narcissists and the “show me the money” crowd.

Right, like posting on the internet is even close to the equivalent of when I was active 24/7 in all manner of political groups. All at the time deemed to be “one of us”. Protesting, demonstrating, organizing, arguing eyeball to eyeball with dozens of different folks in dozens of different contexts.

That’s just complaining that some people are more certain of themselves than you think that they ought to be.

Apparently uncertain fascists battling uncertain communists is better than certain fascists battling certain communists. #-o

Well, you don’t actually make a case that moderation, negotiation and compromise are the better way to go. So why would anyone do it?

I was thinking in terms of you taking up meditation in order to feel less F&F rather than overthrowing the overlords.

[i]Let’s try this. Note the top 3 things you posted above on this thread that I did not respond to. [/i]

And since [presumably] Buddhists do have some measure of access to what the Buddha meant by enlightenment and karma, how do they apply that to the behaviors they choose so as to embody what they believe the Buddha meant by reincarnation and Nirvana down the road. Which, as I note time and again, reflects my own personal interest in religion.

Not theirs though? Not yours? Then, sure, steer clear of my posts.

Huh?!

In my interactions with others involving conflicting goods, there are things in the either/or world we can all agree on. The facts embedded in abortion, the facts embedded in gun ownership, the facts embedded in vaccination policy. Facts in which neither I nor they feel fractured and fragmented. But in reacting to those facts as that impacts on one’s moral and political convictions, my “I” is fractured and fragmented here in a way that the objectivists sense of self is not. Why? Because they have either been indoctrinated by others or thought themselves into believing they are in sync with a “real me” in tandem with the conviction that “as one of us”, they know the right thing to do.

Then it’s all about focusing in on a particular context and examining each other’s moral philosophy.

I don’t agree. It’s bullshit. Sometimes I go with “I”, other times with I. Then again your accusations. Accusations not centered on an unfolding discussion revolving around a particular set of circumstances whereby in detail you can note when I do all of these things.

Over and over and over and over again, I make a distinction between essential meaning in the either/or world – things that mean the same for all of us – and what appears to me to be a lack of essential meaning given our moral and political reactions to that which we can all agree is in fact true.

Abortion as a medical procedure. A particular abortion in a particular context bursting at the seams with facts that everyone concurs regarding. Essential, objective truths here. At least as I understand the meaning of it.

Then the ethicists and all the rest of us weigh in on the rightness or the wrongness of abortion. The part “I” construe to be rooted far more subjectively in the existential fabrication embodied in dasein. Now, there may well be essential truths here as well. Rooted in God, or, if No God, rooted deontologically in a demonstrable philosophical argument.

And, if so, produce this God. Produce this secular argument.

As for this…

…a little help from others here please. What exactly is he arguing here about me? Reconfigure his point so that I might actually grasp these contradictions of mine more perspicuously. Same with my dishonesty.

There is an enormous gap between my argument here and Buddhism. Again, “the existential interpretation” revolves around “I” in the is/ought word, and not in the either/or world. How in fact did the Buddha himself make this distinction?

And my fractured and fragmented “I” here does not conclude that through enlightenment and karma I will continue on in being reincarnated after death with the potential for achieving Nirvana.

Whatever that actually means and however that might actually be demonstrated.

Again, all of this revolves around “I” in the is/ought world. I would never conclude this regarding the biological, demographic, experiential [u][b]I[/u][/b] embedded in the laws of nature, embedded in the actual unfolding empirical world around me.

Here, instead, my uncertainty revolves more around the extent to which determinism might be the case. Rendering the distinction between “I” and [u][b]I[/u][/b] entirely moot.

So then you’re undecided about determinism? Lol

Aren’t you, Curly? :sunglasses:

On the other hand, seriously, aren’t you?

No. I love a good paradox.