The Absolute

The Absolute is that which exists independently of any external relationships.
Therefore, it is "all things."
Each "thing" exists as it does only because of its relationships to all other "things."
Thus, only the totality of "things" exists independently.

The Absolute has three aspects:

the visible, tangible universe;
the organisms that see and feel it;
invisible, intangible realities detected and comprehended scientifically.

Thus, the metaphysical view that the Absolute is an invisible, intangible substance permeating and transcending the universe is essentially correct.

Souls Or Selves

A self is a subject of consciousness.
A soul would be an immortal, immaterial self.
The Buddha denied souls, including a universal soul, but not consciousness or a self-conscious universe.
There are "Consciousness Only" Buddhists.
However, mortal selves are psychophysical, not merely psychological.
Each human organism unifies its mental processes with the sense of a single, enduring self.
However, mental processes remain diverse and conflictive.

What Is The Buddha Dharma?

The Buddha Dharma is the Way to the End of Suffering.

If there is no hereafter, then death ends suffering by ending consciousness.

Suicide is self-inflicted death.

However, Buddhists believe that death is followed by rebirth.

Therefore, they try to end suffering by ending rebirth.

So is Buddhist practice just longer term suicide?

That is not what I get from the Dharma.

It is possible to end the psychological cause of suffering while remaining alive.

After he had realized his enlightenment, the Buddha continued to live, meditate and teach for several decades.

The point of the Dharma is the period between beginning practice and physically dying.

There is no point in seeking unconsciousness which I believe will come at death.

From History To Eternity

Historically
Krishna taught karma yoga.
Gautama taught meditation.
Jesus preached the kingdom.

Mythologically
Krishna was either the eighth avatar of Vishnu or the Supreme God.

Gautama was one of innumerable Buddhas and a manifestation of the Cosmic Buddha.

Jesus was the Messiah and God Incarnate and is risen.

Spiritually
We pray or meditate with diverse concepts, beliefs and images.

Eschatologically
Kalki, the future avatar, will come.
Maitreya, the future Buddha, will come.
The risen Christ will return.

Eternally
Past, present and future are one.

Human Immortality VII

See recent posts.

McTaggart argues that matter as he understands it does not exist and that mind is more likely to be immortal if it is not dependent on matter whereas I argue that matter, differently understood, does exist and that mind clearly depends on it.

His argument, even if valid, that internal sensations do not entail external sensed objects has no practical implications. A man still dies in agony if he is deprived of food. It remains necessary to live and work as if pre-conscious being, as described by physicists, not as abstracted from sensations, exists and matters. Any empirical evidence to the contrary would have to be considered whereas idealist metaphysical arguments make no difference and, in any case, can be replied to.

Human Immortality VI

See recent numbered posts on "Human Immortality." For the full reference to the work cited, see the first such post here.

In Part I, McTaggart explains how he thinks that science can function without matter:

scientific observations tell us what has been experienced;

established uniformities connect the experiences;

statements about the past or future tell us what has been or will be experienced;

thus, science is about nothing more than experiences.

"What more does science tell us, or what more could it desire to tell us?" (p. 44)

When it seems to tell us about independently existing matter, is this merely:

"...the unconscious and uncritical metaphysics of ordinary language..."? (ibid.)

It is not just that but is also the critical metaphysics of philosophical materialists. But science does more than tell us about experiences. Its findings are also tested in practice. Applications of science have changed the world for good or bad. We use technology, like this computer, all the time. Scientists tell us that a devastating explosion was caused by the splitting of an atom. An idealist philosopher replies that the atom does not exist and that a scientist has merely connected the experience of constructing an artifact called an atomic bomb with the experience of witnessing an explosion - whereas scientific theory explains the connection. In practice, "uncritical" language assuming the existence of the elements and particles described by scientists covers the phenomena far more effectively than these metaphysical arguments which cannot influence the course of events and which therefore become, in practical terms, irrelevant.

Human Immortality V

See Human Immortality IV and earlier posts. For the full reference to the work quoted, see Human Immortality.

"Thus the theory which makes the external causes of our sensations material reaches a climax of inconsistency. Its one defence was the principle that the causes of the sensations must resemble the sensations they cause. But now it turns out that that which the causes are to resemble is a mere abstraction from our sensations, which is so far from being a sensation which we experience, that we cannot even imagine what such a sensation would be like." (p. 33)

In dialectical materialism, "matter" means only the external cause of sensations so there is no need to make that cause "material." (Of course, "external" means "external to consciousness.") That the causes of sensations must resemble the sensations caused is not a defense of materialism. On the contrary, the nature of the causes must be discovered by empirical investigation. There is a dramatic contrast between the world as we perceive it and that same world as we scientifically understand it but it remains a single world, both perceived and understood.

We sense concrete, not abstract, extension but apply abstract extension in mathematics while physicists currently understand material objects not as abstract extensions but as large numbers of moving and interacting particles.

Extended, impenetrable "matter" does not exist but something external to consciousness, called "matter" by dialectical materialists, does exist. Similarly, in Marxist theory, "workers" are those who survive economically by selling their labor power, not necessarily those who work in factories. Capitalism continually transforms its means of production as scientists continually transform their understanding of matter. The material environment is transformed by mental and manual labor and understood by mental labor so this comparison between the changing composition of the working class and the changing understanding of matter is not fanciful. Rigid categories of mechanical materialism or of doctrinaire socialism are inadequate for thinking about either nature or society.

Human Immortality IV

See Human Immortality III.

"I believe that further consideration should convince us, for reasons somewhat analogous to those of Hegel and Lotze, that all substance must possess certain characteristics which are essential to the nature of spirit, and incompatible with the nature of matter." (p. 40, footnote)

The nature of matter, according to McTaggart: extended, mobile, impenetrable, independent of observation;

the nature of spirit, according to McTaggart: alternating between consciousness and unconsciousness;

my view of matter: as described by McTaggart when presented to our senses but also possessing other, e.g., quantum mechanical, properties and also alternating between consciousness and unconsciousness.

Quantum mechanics might contribute to the mind-body problem.

I was taught Hegelianism by a Hegelian and thought that dialectical idealism might help to refute Marxism. However, I now accept dialectical materialism.

Human Immortality III

See Human Immortality and Human Immortality II.

"Of course the independent existence and ultimate nature of matter is a question for metaphysics and not for science." (p. 34)

McTaggart means by "matter" unconscious being possessing certain properties whereas I think that, philosophically, "matter" means just pre-conscious being whatever its properties. Although the existence of such matter is a metaphysical theory, empirical scientists now tell us much more about its nature than metaphysicians can.

McTaggrat says that, when a material object ceases to exist, all that happens is that its units cease to be combined. (p. 63) But there is also the continual process of entropy by which all energy gradually ceases to be active. Thus, eventually, separated units will no longer recombine unless another universe starts as this one somehow did.

Human Immortality II

See Human Immortality.

"Matter, then, is held to be extended, to have position, and to be capable of motion independently of observation. It is also impenetrable - that is, no two pieces of matter can occupy the same position in space. But it has no colour, it is neither hard nor soft, it has no taste, no smell, and no sound." (p. 22)

When searching for an external cause of our sensations, McTaggart writes:

"A reality which exists independently of me need not be matter - it might, for example, be another spirit. We do not call anything matter unless it possesses the primary qualities of matter given above." (p. 30)

We do call something matter even if it does not possess the primary qualities given above. Mass is a form of energy. Macroscopic objects are composed of empty spaces and forces between subatomic particles whose properties differ qualitatively from those of macroscopic objects. Lenin argued in Materialism and Empirio-criticism that:

philosophically, "matter" just means that which pre-existed consciousness and which continues to exist independently of consciousness;

the properties of "matter" (a more neutral term is "being") are to be discovered by empirical science, not by philosophy;

any scientific account is only provisional because there is always more to be discovered.

Contemporary science seems to confirm this last proposition.

"Causes do not necessarily resemble their effects." (ibid.)

I agree. The world as described by physics is not as we perceive it. Necessarily, we perceive discrete objects separated by apparently empty spaces whereas the reality is a continuum of electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves. But it remains "matter" in Lenin's sense of being that pre-existed and determines consciousness, indeed that has become conscious.

Human Immortality

J.M.E. McTaggart, Human Immortality And Pre-Existence (London, 1916), Part I, Human Immortality, pp. 9-69.

McTaggart believes that sufficient arguments for immortality exist but that they depend on an idealist theory of reality that he hopes to present in a later volume. Until I read and am persuaded by such arguments, I remain, at least provisionally, a materialist.

"All ultimate explanation endeavours to reduce the universe to a unity." (p. 15)

I agree.

"Monism then, whether it be materialism or idealism, is more attractive to the majority of inquirers than dualism is." (p. 16)

I agree.

"Deeper inquiry will, I think, show us that there is no reason to believe that matter does exist." (p. 20)

I need to be persuaded.

"The orange is no more yellow when no one sees it than it is desired when no one knows of its existence." (p. 21)

The sensation of yellow is the effect in us of light reflected from an orange because the surface of the orange absorbs some electromagnetic wavelengths and reflects others. I think that it is legitimate to say that the objectively/externally existing orange is "yellow" if by this we mean that it reflects the wavelengths that cause in us the sensation of yellow. Thus, the perceived color, yellow, is a secondary quality whereas the quality of reflecting the corresponding wavelengths is primary.

When we dream, we believe, e.g., that a roc's egg is real. When we are awake, we believe that our table is real. McTaggarat writes:

"...that belief [about the table] is no stronger and no more evident than the other [about the roc's egg] had been previously." (p. 26)

I think that the belief about the table is stronger and more evident than belief in the roc's egg. We categorize dreams as unreal precisely by contrasting them with the more stable, permanent, consistent and publicly accessible experiences of waking life. You can see, feel and sit at my table today and again tomorrow whereas you do not share my fleeting, one-off image of a roc's egg. Of course, our acceptance of the reality of waking experience is theoretically provisional. We might some day wake up into an even more stable, permanent and consistent world. We need not deny that theoretical possibility while meanwhile continuing to regard the table as real.

To be continued.