wandelaar

To rule out fraud one you has to involve experts who know how one can fool other people, and scientists and medical doctors usually know next to nothing about that. That's not their business, and rightly so. The experts you need to have present are stage magicians with an interest in the occult and paranormal. I have no illusions about the usefulness of discussions with Ilovecoffee, but for Menezes it might be interesting to know that "having scientists and medical doctors present" just isn't enough for a decent parapsychological experiment.

I agree with you because I disagree. Let me explain. Philosophical logic is an academic discipline somewhat like mathematics. So it doesn't matter very much what happens in our individual brains when it comes to deciding what can or cannot be done with the tools of modern philosophical logic. The possibilities of modern philosophical logic are way beyond what the founders of philosophical Taoism or you and I can imagine by simply noticing what our personal logical brains can or cannot handle. We have to see what has been done by those active in the field of philosophical logic to get an impression of what it can or cannot do. Further I think it's useless or even counterproductive (because of the backfire-effect) to have a discussion with somebody who doesn't wish to consider the possibility that he is wrong. I also try (it isn't easy ) to keep open the possibility that I am wrong on some points.

@ LiT I will not join in this discussion again, but I have two things to say: 1. Modern philosophical logic is a huge discipline where all sorts of reasoning are investigated including paradoxical ones. See for instance the work of Graham Priest. So I wouldn't say something is beyond logical thought simply because it is beyond old school Aristotelian logic. 2. The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths is a very rational doctrine that simultaneously accommodates your two perspectives.

@ MopaiWarlord The Buddhists are well aware of the danger of considering everything equally unreal and thus getting lost in a world of fantasy instead of understanding the true nature of the world! That's why they developed the doctrine of the two truths: absolute and conventional truth. Using the unrealness of the conventional world as a license to believe or do anything you like will land you in big trouble. The conventional truth of our everyday world has to be taken just as serious as the absolute truth of its unrealness.

How about the superhuman capabilities that are here ascribed to the sage? The example of the drunk falling from a carriage without injury would not be appropriate when the chapter was only about inner cultivation and staying out of trouble.

And so it goes....

How can it be that a quote from Alain Connes reads like complete nonsense? Well I looked at the beginning of the posted video and quickly noticed that the quote misses a huge amount of text (where we read .... ). So the quote is actually made incomprehensible by ViYY in the same way as the texts of ViYY himself are incomprehensible. Now this last thing has been mentioned many times over by other Bums also. So apparently ViYY doesn't want to be understood. Why that is so I can only guess....

Where is the pdf?

Everyday life is real to. And finding ways of living ones life in a satisfying manner is half of what philosophical Taoism is about, if not all. Paranormal abilities (if such a thing exists) will only change ones boundary between what one can and cannot do, but the real problem is dealing with the fact that we are powerless as regards the fundamental workings of the Tao (laws of nature).

In another topic Wu Ming Jen wrote: This is an interesting point you bring up here. Lately I have been looking at nature with an eye to learning about the workings of Tao and how to live like that. Do you or any other Bums know of any books or articles that can help me recognise crucial natural processes that carry a lesson for us as to how to life our daily life.

Found this: https://chenyuhsi.wordpress.com/2014/07/09/the-way-of-nature-as-a-healing-power-the-taoist-perspective/

(Colours added.) Yes - J. McDonald is still using the wrong translation. But of course Marblehead will naturally prefer to keep the blocks : (By Harald Bischoff - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18771352)

It can be done: So it all depends on circumstances what does or does not work.

The perspective in which there are persons, houses, trees, rivers, etc. is extremely useful in our daily life, but it is based on useful fictions as you showed by means of the other perspectives you mentioned. The modern scientific viewpoint is that the things of our everyday world have no independent existence and are actually temporary appearances (much like the clouds in the sky) of underlying processes. It is practically handy to consider them as things for the business of daily life but logically and on the basis of intellectual understanding they are not things. this is all a question of the desired level of description. Logic and intellect of themselves are not limited to the usual descriptions of our everyday world. If they were science would never have been able to understand something about the cosmos or the world of the very small.

This is a forced way to blame logic and intellectual understanding! Actually I think the rest of your post is very good and to the point, and there is no reason why logic and intellectual understanding are limited to the "I am one"-perspective and would be unable to take the other perspectives you mentioned.

The riverbed also moves. See:

Very interesting! I have created another topic especially about what we can learn from nature:

Derek Lin says in his translation of the Tao Te Ching that the common translation of pu as "uncarved block" is wrong. Is that correct?

It will probably be the same as with near death experiences. There are people who consider them as mere effects of a dysfunctional brain, and they will not draw any spiritual conclusions from having had such experiences. And then there are others who interpret them from a religious perspective and will come away with the conviction of the immortality of the soul, the existence of heaven and/or of hell, etc. So the overall effect strongly depends on ones personality and world view. There is also the difference between sudden and gradual enlightenment. Apparently there are (at least) two roads.

@ steve I consider it perfectly possible to intellectually realize the probable correctness of non-duality as a world view. In fact that is how I see it. And that could be called a kind of realization. On a small scale there is the experience of flow. Such episodes happen often enough when one gets absorbed in some satisfying activity. I have those experiences quite often. Besides that there is the grand experiential realization where the sense of being a person apart from the world temporarily disappears. I don't remember having had such a grand non-dual realization. But I can imagine how it would be for somebody who experientially discovers that there is no fundamental boundary between ourselves and the outside world apart from the line between them that we ourselves draw. It could be an existential shock and result in a feeling of liberation and/or intense fear. How the realization will work out overall depends on the character and world view of the person having the experience. I don't think I'm likely to have a grand non-dual realisation because I already accept non-duality as the most likely basic structure of the world, so the element of shock will be missing. It's all a question of psychology. Nothing mysterious about it.

Do you have any argument why you think that's true.

Taoism = Buddhism - Reincarnation

Always nice to have someone around who is beyond all that....

It is exactly the fact that we are "physical beings with physical limits", that makes non-duality the most likely philosophy of choice. In physics we have the Doctrine of Uniformity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism This doctrine (or rather supposition) corresponds to Taoism's claim that Tao is the eternal and constant foundation of everything. For as long as there is no proof that the world is fractured in regions with their own special Tao's, then the most simple supposition is that there is just one (foundational) Tao. In science one would call that way of viewing things using Occam's razor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor So contrary to the common claim that non-duality is beyond the reach of rational thought and/or science, I would say non-duality actually is at the heart of both. The division we commonly make between ourselves and the outside world is just the way in which natural evolution made sure we would know what to protect for our own survival. And that's also the reason why in daily life we will need to keep track of the difference between ourselves and the outside world for as long as we care for our survival, even though we know that fundamentally there is no difference between ourselves and the outside world. No need to go beyond rational thought or science to understand non-duality.

That's a good one. Indeed when one goes around claiming to be such or so then the whole idea of who we are and what we are worth becomes dependent one that one aspect of our current life. That would be a big obstacle to changing when our circumstances demand it. I like this interpretation because it doesn't say anything about the sage being able to be a master of all things, but only that the sage doesn't have to face the usual obstacles of those who get stuck in just one social role.