Buddhism's belief in 'no self'

reply to post by LifeIsEnergy


You and I are, ourselves, more like a wave than a permanent thing. Think of an experience from your childhood -- something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there.

After all, you really were there at the time, weren't you? How else would you remember it?

But here is the bombshell: You weren't there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place. Matter flows from place to placeand momentarily comes together to be you.Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does, because it is important.

-Richard Dawkins

reply to post by sureshot321


Exactly! He also said something to that effect which I left out of the OP. Our discussion was much longer than what I posted but I didn't want it to be too long for you guys to read.



ChiForce: Thank you for your many posts, I really appreciate your input!

Originally posted by quantum_flux
A Rebuttal of the Buddhist Concept of Self

The buddhist believes that he/she is one with the universe (ergo the self is the universe), whereas I define the boundries of "self" as being where functionality stops. When people are interacting with something then suddenly the two systems become one, but when they stop interacting the system splits back into two separate systems once again.

The boundaries of self is dependent on what function you are serving at a given time, the boundaries of ego are constantly inflating and deflating with your conscious functionality. If you happen to be driving then your ego merges with the vehicle that you are controling, if you are using a camera or computer, playing sports, etc, your ego merges with whatever function you are performing.


[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/103e70abed9a.jpg[/atsimg]

i.e. People can be one with a golf club if they happen to be in the process of using that golf club, but as soon as that golf club goes back into the bag it becomes a separate entity, no longer a part of the user (except that the golf club becomes a part of the bag which then becomes a part of the caddy or golfcart, but if you carry the golfbag then it remains a part of yourself). The buddhist would have you believe that your self is permanently attached to that golf club regardless (and the rest of the universe for that matter), independent of whether you are using it or carrying it or not....lol.

I offer a different view of the buddhist concept of no-self. If I think of hitting a gong with a mallet and hear the sound in my mind, then when my body mimics that movement and the gong produces a sound which another hears, they are not hearing anything that is me but they are simply hearing reality. I may have initiated the sound but there is nothing of "me" in the sound waves. Suppose there would be 2 gongs and mallets and a wall between those making a sound on the gong and those listening (and none of the listeners would know behind which wall I would be sitting), no one would be able to tell by the sound they hear which one is hit by me or someone else because the sound would be (almost) identical. Now the listeners can ascribe all kinds of things to the person initiating the sound of a gong, they may imagine there is some personal energy carried by the sound originating from the gong or the mallet in their minds but all they will see is a fantasy, it is not reality and that is what buddhist are aspiring to understand.

To add, buddhism also states there is no existing thing which is permanent, so even if there was some magical energy which is "you" and a golf club is soaked in that energy, it would dissapear overtime anyway. Seriously, whoever explained buddhist theory to you is badly mistaken, believing in such views would lead to insanity. I have seen similar explanations of oneness, buddhism is not about that. So many people out there believing since they know there is a self (without thoroughly understanding the inner workings of the mind) and there is a universe (without anyone ever having travelled beyond the moon, just some pictures of the stars), the two can ben merged somehow and when that happens everything will be ok. Such persons wouldn't even be able to explain to someone else (even though you would expect they know it all) what exactly merged with what.

Originally posted by LifeIsEnergy
Thanks guys/gals, there is a lot of good info here and I will come back later and go through it more thoroughly.

Pachomius: I strongly do not believe he was trying to deceive me or trick me into believing anything, that is why he stopped and did not give me an answer but rather told me to now go and find it myself. Also ducking when a rock is throwing at your face has nothing to do with the 'self' as I am referring to it here. What you said doesn't make very much sense.

And I will in the future make a thread about Nirvana but I do not want to mix the two into one thread as they are both very difficult concepts and deserve individual attention. Thanks though.

Suppose we're in a world where no one throws stones at eachother or ever has. There's this guy who casts the first stone towards another and the other is hit with it. Now the second time a stone is thrown, new braincells have been formed to understand what is happening and the body learns how to avoid the stone, maybe in midfligh the second time and a third time when a stone is being picked up in order to be thrown.

Each successive time a stone is thrown and evaded new braincells form and eventually such a person would spot another person making the movements which would lead to actually throwing a stone and such a person would be long gone before the actual throwing occurs. Being safe, such a person might try to throw stones himself in a controlled environment in order to understand why something like throwing stones is possible and comes up with gravity, mass, all the physical aspects. Then such a person might begin to wonder why another wants to hurl stones at him and comes up with all kinds of psychological aspects such as hate, envy, angryness. All these things make our brains grow, in such a way we become more and more aware of eachother and our surroundings. Ofcourse we can keep on picking up stones to throw and our muscles would evolve, our brains would also grow because of inventing new ways of throwing stones which ultimately leads to nukes but why would we.

The "self" is the "spark" of life that we all have within us.

Everything else is a vague description of that "spark".

Originally posted by quantum_flux
[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/103e70abed9a.jpg[/atsimg]

It's an quite interesting image. You support that I am one with the camera and tha table, when touching them?

However I am always touching the planet, which is always touching the table and camera, I am also connected to you and everything else in the entirety of the universe. How then am I not One with you?

With a few exceptions, the contributors to this thread seem to operate from three basic fallacies.

That buddhism is a completely uniform system (there is an internal disagreement in buddhism on the subject of 'self' and 'reality').

That the basis of buddhism can be presented in doctrinal forms (no matter what faction of buddhism represented, the semantic part is secondary to the necessity of transcendent experience).

And ofcourse the 'god' types, who with practically no knowledge of anything but their own 'holy manual' spread 'god' all over the place. Stop being so darned patronizing, adding concepts to systems you know nothing of.

I think this is a good thread, and I have struggled with this concept of "no self", also.

If you change the words, the Buddhist concept becomes very clear (and flawed) if broken apart into two concepts.

1) an "atomic" entity (something that cannot be divided further)
2) an organized system - a *relationship* of sub-systems and/or atomic components

When you do this, you begin to see the flaw of logic in the Buddhist concept of "no self".

I'll use a primitive example (Iron and rust) and sophisticated example (human self).

An iron atom most certainly exists because we can perform the same experiments upon it no matter the time or location and get the same results. reproducible results prove/disprove "existence".

That iron atom can join with other iron atoms to form a bar of solid iron. The bar exists because it can reproduce experimental results. If left over time, it can combine with air to form rust. Rust also exists, it is not an iron bar, and both an iron bar and rust are a result of an "Organized System".

Here is the key that refutes Buddhist logic: A system is [existing entities + relationships]. Simple systems (with few variables) will also reproduce experimental results - so systems also exist, by definition.

As we increase the numbers of relationships/variables (like the system of human consciousness), we approach our human limitations in setting up the same experiment more than once - and therefore proving existence of complex systems becomes impossible for humans.

This is not "No Self", this is our human limitations in simulating complex systems.
I assure you, Self does indeed exist, and it is the most complex system we as humans have encountered so far.

=======================
P.S. I could have said an iron atom is a system of nucleons, but it would have detracted from the example.
On the other hand, if we keep building bigger atom smashers and never find the true indivisible god particle - that would make the Buddhists smile.

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Any thing can be broken down into its parts, those parts broken down into atoms, and those atoms broken down into a series of temporal events, thus no thing has a permanent existence. All things are impermanent. This truth is the Dharma, which frees us from our ego and attachment to material aggregates.

At least that's how I interpret Buddhism. So I guess the only thing that is really eternal is the truth that nothing is eternal. Sort of a contradiction, which is probably why the Buddha did not stress any type of system either physical or metaphysical, but rather taught the cause and end of suffering. This is a more subjective and practical application compared to talking about origins or atoms.

Re ATS4dummies

if I understand you correctly, you operate from the parameters of an empirical, reductionist system. If my impression is right, the only thing you have done is to DEFINE away something you don't believe in. Just like all other kinds of fundamentalism do.

reply to post by filosophia

I completely agree Filosophia.

Science is only good for the things science can measure. That is limited by the tools humans build.
I have no doubt there are many things in the universe (and beyond?) that our crude technologies *cannot* yet measure.

In the spirit for which it was created, Buddhism (like all religions) is yet another tool for humans to cope with living in a chaotic universe, and to make the most extreme unlivable misfortunes - livable.

reply to post by LifeIsEnergy


did you grab the pebble from his hand?

do you know master po?

geeze, what you talkin bout?

the self is spirit, reincarnated many times, same spirit, hence dali lama,. not deli france.

Re Filosophia

Earlier on this thread someone mentioned the paradox of different 'realities' being 'true' at the same time. And while most mainstream buddhistic factions disagree on the finer points on this, none consider it nonsense or a paradox. It's just a question of removing the intellectual tyranny of linear causality. That's mostly what zen is about.

Moving lorries are NOT impermanent, when you meet them head on. On the other hand lorries will eventually become impermanent (after 10 followed by 32 zeros years), when the mass-binding gluons run out of juice.

Your own interpretation of buddhism is only half of it. The subjective, practical part of it is stressed (usually with much less dogma, than other systems use), but there's an epistemological dimension to buddhism, which is rather impressive. Only this part is usually lost in the week-end crash courses in buddhism, which westerners meet.

reply to post by LifeIsEnergy


I could have told YOU that!

LoL

See I made a funny



The concept is being validated in Science as we get to understand the unifying field that leads to universal self.

Korg.

Originally posted by ATS4dummies
I think this is a good thread, and I have struggled with this concept of "no self", also.

If you change the words, the Buddhist concept becomes very clear (and flawed) if broken apart into two concepts.

1) an "atomic" entity (something that cannot be divided further)
2) an organized system - a *relationship* of sub-systems and/or atomic components

When you do this, you begin to see the flaw of logic in the Buddhist concept of "no self".

I'll use a primitive example (Iron and rust) and sophisticated example (human self).

An iron atom most certainly exists because we can perform the same experiments upon it no matter the time or location and get the same results. reproducible results prove/disprove "existence".

That iron atom can join with other iron atoms to form a bar of solid iron. The bar exists because it can reproduce experimental results. If left over time, it can combine with air to form rust. Rust also exists, it is not an iron bar, and both an iron bar and rust are a result of an "Organized System".

Here is the key that refutes Buddhist logic: A system is [existing entities + relationships]. Simple systems (with few variables) will also reproduce experimental results - so systems also exist, by definition.

As we increase the numbers of relationships/variables (like the system of human consciousness), we approach our human limitations in setting up the same experiment more than once - and therefore proving existence of complex systems becomes impossible for humans.

This is not "No Self", this is our human limitations in simulating complex systems.
I assure you, Self does indeed exist, and it is the most complex system we as humans have encountered so far.

=======================
P.S. I could have said an iron atom is a system of nucleons, but it would have detracted from the example.
On the other hand, if we keep building bigger atom smashers and never find the true indivisible god particle - that would make the Buddhists smile.

edit on 1-10-2010 by ATS4dummies because: typo

You are also wrong because you can't refute a system, which is beyond your comprehension, with your system of logics. How can you use a lower level system of logics to describe a higher one?

Originally posted by bogomil
Re ATS4dummies

if I understand you correctly, you operate from the parameters of an empirical, reductionist system. If my impression is right, the only thing you have done is to DEFINE away something you don't believe in. Just like all other kinds of fundamentalism do.

Yes, that's like using the Newtonian physics to describe Quantum Mechanics...

One could be induced to identify as being anyone. The dream is perceived to be real until awakening. There is no self or an infinite variety of selves.

[URL=http://img831.imageshack.us/i/journalpone0003832g006.jpg/]

If I Were You: Perceptual Illusion of Body Swapping

In this experiment, the experimenter was wearing a specially designed helmet equipped with two CCTV cameras mounted in such a way that they presented the viewpoint of the experimenter. In turn, the participants stood directly opposite the experimenter, wearing the HMDs, which were connected to the CCTV cameras on the experimenter's head. Thus, the participants were facing the cameras. The participants were asked to stretch out their right arm and take hold of the experimenter's right hand, as if to shake it. This set-up allowed the participants to see their physical bodies from the shoulders to slightly above the knees. Hence, they could clearly recognize themselves and distinguish between their own arm and the arm of the experimenter. Interviews conducted immediately after these initial experiments demonstrated that this set-up evoked a vivid illusion that the experimenter's arm was the participant's own arm and that the participants could sense their entire body just behind this arm. Most remarkably, the participants' sensations of the tactile and muscular stimulation elicited by the squeezing of the hands seemed to originate from the experimenter's hand, and not from their own clearly visible hand. In six other participants we also observed that this illusion worked well when the cameras were tilted downwards so that the participant could see the torso, legs and both arms of the experimenter's body during the manual interaction. www.plosone.org...

I disagree with the idea that the self is somehow an illusion.

The soul is always changing. Fine. Everything changes. the rocks, stones, walls, shoes, etc. are constantly attacked by a variety of forces from bacteria to cosmic radiation. To quote the Heraclitus, "No man steps in the same river twice." So, then, are all rivers illusory? Bees only live for six weeks; does this mean that bees are an illusion?

The second argument is that the self is an aggregate.

But does this mean that it is an illusion? Inflation is a non-material entity that is nothing more than the aggregate of billions of individual transactions each day. Is inflation an illusion? Is it not "real?"

By that logic, "everything" is an illusion, since.... everything changes, and everything is an aggregate of composed entirely of changing parts.

Maybe there's a translation issue from Sanskrit to English. Personally, I can imagine that that Buddhism is making the same point as E-prime .

In the words of Buckminster Fuller, "I seem to be a verb"

.

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft

I disagree with the idea that the self is somehow an illusion.

The soul is always changing. Fine. Everything changes. the rocks, stones, walls, shoes, etc. are constantly attacked by a variety of forces from bacteria to cosmic radiation. To quote the Heraclitus, "No man steps in the same river twice." So, then, are all rivers illusory? Bees only live for six weeks; does this mean that bees are an illusion?

The second argument is that the self is an aggregate.

But does this mean that it is an illusion? Inflation is a non-material entity that is nothing more than the aggregate of billions of individual transactions each day. Is inflation an illusion? Is it not "real?"

By that logic, "everything" is an illusion, since.... everything changes, and everything is an aggregate of composed entirely of changing parts.

Maybe there's a translation issue from Sanskrit to English. Personally, I can imagine that that Buddhism is making the same point as E-prime .

In the words of Buckminster Fuller, "I seem to be a verb"

.

Heheheh.......basically, natural phenomena is an illusion because the planet has been evolving over billions of years. What you called a river now it was a desert some couple of thousands of years ago. When you enter the human consciousness into it, it becomes real. See, it is our human consciousness that gives forms a reality, not the object itself.

Second, this one is easy. Try to live in another country. I assume you are living in the US. After 10 years living in Thailand, do you think you are still the same old person when you were living in the US??? Social persona is nothing but a mask people wear to interact with their social surrounding. Strip that off, it is nothing to see by the unconscious.

reply to post by ChiForce


True enough (and affirmations of the points I was making). But none of those shows that the self is particularly MORE illusory than the rest of reality.

The self is...as real as it gets.

So what if it is an illusion? Your bills are still due at the end of the month.

Knowing that I am an illusion doesn't lessen the pain I feel when I stub my toe; it doesn't make me a better lover, or a happier camper. How does knowledge in this baseline state of consciousness actually liberate you from anything?

Personally, I am a neoplatonist; I believe that this physical world is not the ultimate reality, and that there are archetypes in the ideal dimension, of which this physical world of forms is merely one reflection. In that sense, I could agree that the self you perceive is not "who you really are."

But saying it is "an illusion" is not very helpful. I can understand the argument that the concept or impression or belief in the self is somehow pernicious or an impediment to realizing your potential.

But it also happens to be universal---every human with moderate cognitive power seems to be seduced by "the lie" that he or she is in fact a self.

I guess I'm saying that if you experience the feeling of being a self, then you are one, whether you... believe in yourself, or not...