Post by Liquid Len on Nov 18, 2005 10:48:14 GMT -5
According to zen buddhism (but also to some other religious and philosophical traditions) there are no persons, only experiences. So one could say that they think that all there is are perceptions, often manyfold and colourful, but nobody who has them. They say that the often uttered opinion that someone perceives something, and someone else something else is an illusion. Now, buddhism is heavily in fashion and many people in the West seem to think that this idea can very easily be understood, even intellectually. IMO that's an error; it's impossible to translate our normal experience one-to-one into the worldview of zen:
Try for once to imagine a universe that consists solely of perceptions, completely without persons. Some of these perceptions are arranged into small groups, others and some of these groups are linked to each other through time - exactly like in our experience. So far it's easily conceivable. But the problems start when we stop merely looking at this imaginary world from the outside, as if it were an object, and instead start imagining what it would be like to be a part of it. The key question is how I get myself into it. Because, if we look at our real world, it's not deniable that I'm a part of this world (not the whole) right now. (You can doubt that you've lived one minute ago (the memories could be faked), and you can of course doubt that you'll be still alive in one minute, but not that you're now being a part of the world, obviously for longer than just a fraction of a second.) So when I'm trying to conceive that I'm being a part of our imagined universe that consists solely of perceptions, there are only two possibilities: Either I could think that I'm one of these mentioned small groups of perceptions, because this would correspond well to my subjective experience at a given time. But this leads to an unsolvable problem: If I'm identical with a certain collection of perceptions, then I cannot be identical with another collection of perceptions later... that's logical. Hence it would follow that I could only exist for a moment - but that's clearly nonsensical. So consider the other of the two possibilities: Try to imagine an all encompassing field of mind which owns all these perceptions, like the Brahman of Indian religion and philosophy. This field should be entirely homogenous, i.e. there should be no point within it that could be anyhow distinguished from or preferred to another point, because we want to avoid presupposing any persons. The problem of the transience of perceptions would be solved, because the field could possibly exist for all eternity, and only the perceptions would change. The insolvable problem of this variant would be: In this case it would be totally unclear how I come to have exactly my experiences which are (like I've mentioned above) only a fraction of the whole.
If this thought experiment hasn't completely convinced you yet, try another one: Imagine a universe that is an extremely simplified version of our own universe; one in which spatially and timewise seperate perceptions "flash" up, one after one, i.e. they suddenly appear for a short time, and then disappear again. There are two possible ways to interpretate this: Either they are different consciousnesses, or they are all the same consciousness. If they are different, then each seperate upflashing perception would represent an extremely short lived seperate person; again a nonsensical idea if we tried to apply this to our own universe. So there remains the possibility that they are all the same consciousness and being had by a universal field of mind. The seperate perceptions would correspond to pseudo-persons, because we don't allow there to be any transmission of memories between them, so they wouldn't know anything of each other, but still they all would be contents in one consciousness; from my subjective point of view: in my consciousness. That's how one might try to explain the fact that we in our world believe to be real, seperate persons, without presupposing any real persons. So far the model is fully conceivable. But the problems start when we make it only slightly more complex and thus more realistic: Imagine that two of these seperate perceptions flash up at the same time. There the model breaks down because who is perceiving what now? I'm perceiving only one of these seperate perceptions, only one pseudo-person, but which one? And why? Why not the other? Why not both?
Hence the idea that there are no persons can't be understood intellectually (and for me that's enough reason to reject it).
Try for once to imagine a universe that consists solely of perceptions, completely without persons. Some of these perceptions are arranged into small groups, others and some of these groups are linked to each other through time - exactly like in our experience. So far it's easily conceivable. But the problems start when we stop merely looking at this imaginary world from the outside, as if it were an object, and instead start imagining what it would be like to be a part of it. The key question is how I get myself into it. Because, if we look at our real world, it's not deniable that I'm a part of this world (not the whole) right now. (You can doubt that you've lived one minute ago (the memories could be faked), and you can of course doubt that you'll be still alive in one minute, but not that you're now being a part of the world, obviously for longer than just a fraction of a second.) So when I'm trying to conceive that I'm being a part of our imagined universe that consists solely of perceptions, there are only two possibilities: Either I could think that I'm one of these mentioned small groups of perceptions, because this would correspond well to my subjective experience at a given time. But this leads to an unsolvable problem: If I'm identical with a certain collection of perceptions, then I cannot be identical with another collection of perceptions later... that's logical. Hence it would follow that I could only exist for a moment - but that's clearly nonsensical. So consider the other of the two possibilities: Try to imagine an all encompassing field of mind which owns all these perceptions, like the Brahman of Indian religion and philosophy. This field should be entirely homogenous, i.e. there should be no point within it that could be anyhow distinguished from or preferred to another point, because we want to avoid presupposing any persons. The problem of the transience of perceptions would be solved, because the field could possibly exist for all eternity, and only the perceptions would change. The insolvable problem of this variant would be: In this case it would be totally unclear how I come to have exactly my experiences which are (like I've mentioned above) only a fraction of the whole.
If this thought experiment hasn't completely convinced you yet, try another one: Imagine a universe that is an extremely simplified version of our own universe; one in which spatially and timewise seperate perceptions "flash" up, one after one, i.e. they suddenly appear for a short time, and then disappear again. There are two possible ways to interpretate this: Either they are different consciousnesses, or they are all the same consciousness. If they are different, then each seperate upflashing perception would represent an extremely short lived seperate person; again a nonsensical idea if we tried to apply this to our own universe. So there remains the possibility that they are all the same consciousness and being had by a universal field of mind. The seperate perceptions would correspond to pseudo-persons, because we don't allow there to be any transmission of memories between them, so they wouldn't know anything of each other, but still they all would be contents in one consciousness; from my subjective point of view: in my consciousness. That's how one might try to explain the fact that we in our world believe to be real, seperate persons, without presupposing any real persons. So far the model is fully conceivable. But the problems start when we make it only slightly more complex and thus more realistic: Imagine that two of these seperate perceptions flash up at the same time. There the model breaks down because who is perceiving what now? I'm perceiving only one of these seperate perceptions, only one pseudo-person, but which one? And why? Why not the other? Why not both?
Hence the idea that there are no persons can't be understood intellectually (and for me that's enough reason to reject it).