PhilosophicDiscussion24-Questionsthat tend notto Edification

[Crazyirishman]

Sorry for the shitty spacing in the title, there wasn't enough room for it all. Anyhow:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bits/bits013.htm

What do you think about the idea of Questions that tend not to Edification? We'll call them QTE's for short. Do you think that its a worthwhile concept, or just a philosophic cop out?

I personally find it to be one of the most memorable ideas that I got from Buddhism course that took a couple years back.

[Ray Rider]

Sorry for the shitty spacing in the title, there wasn't enough room for it all. Anyhow:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bits/bits013.htm

What do you think about the idea of Questions that tend not to Edification? We'll call them QTE's for short. Do you think that its a worthwhile concept, or just a philosophic cop out?

I personally find it to be one of the most memorable ideas that I got from Buddhism course that took a couple years back.

I disagree; in the first sermon, simply because following the teacher is not predicated by a clear resolution to those questions, does not therefore mean that the questions are worthless or meaningless. In fact, the way we live our lives depends on our beliefs of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going; these questions are of paramount importance. Yes there is still birth, young energetic life, old age, death, joy, and sorrow no matter whether or not you search for (or find answers to) some of those big questions; but the way you live your life and your entire purpose/meaning for existence depends on what you believe to be the answer to those questions.

As for the second sermon, I don't understand the conclusion to the parable. So the fire was extinguished/extinct, and it is stupid to ask in which direction it went. I agree. But then he says that a saint is like this; and that once the life of a saint has been extinguished and he is released from consciousness, that person is like a deep, immeasurable, unfathomable, ocean, etc. The parable doesn't seem to help explain this at all when this is the crux of the issue. How does Gotama know this? What evidence is there for this conclusion?

I feel gypped. In both sermons, the questions were repeated five times over while the conclusion/answer rests on a sentence or two with little to no explanation lol
Interesting topic though...I haven't looked into Buddhism much since I took an Eastern Religions class in 2009.

[/]

As for the second sermon, I don't understand the conclusion to the parable. So the fire was extinguished/extinct, and it is stupid to ask in which direction it went. I agree. But then he says that a saint is like this; and that once the life of a saint has been extinguished and he is released from consciousness, that person is like a deep, immeasurable, unfathomable, ocean, etc. The parable doesn't seem to help explain this at all when this is the crux of the issue. How does Gotama know this? What evidence is there for this conclusion?

As I understood it, the meaning is that existence itself is all uniting. When the saint dies, it is not as though he is reborn (his physical existence is gone). Nor it is not though he is not reborn (the effect he had on those he helps lives on).
The conclusion is that Gotama is the same as the fire

one were to set up that which was overturned; or were to disclose that which was hidden; or were to point out the way to a lost traveller; or were to carry a lamp into a dark place, that they who had eyes might see forms.

By not minding that he will one day be snuffed out, he lights the way, and in doing so without concern for himself, he lives on. Though the fire doesn't exist anymore, it is proven as existing because the lost traveler with the lamp found his way home.

Something like that, I would guess...

[Crazyirishman]

When I posted the question, I had sermon 1 more in mind, as I personally felt that addresses the topic more directly.

[BigBallinStalin]

Questions which tend not to Edification... do you mean "trolling"?

[Crazyirishman]

Questions which tend not to Edification... do you mean "trolling"?

No, the QTE's explore the topic of shitty and pointless questions. Buddha is saying that those types of questions don't matter because they won't help one reach the goal of Nirvana.

[BigBallinStalin]

Questions which tend not to Edification... do you mean "trolling"?

No, the QTE's explore the topic of shitty and pointless questions. Buddha is saying that those types of questions don't matter because they won't help one reach the goal of Nirvana.

Oh, e.g. "does god exist"?

right?

[Crazyirishman]

Questions which tend not to Edification... do you mean "trolling"?

No, the QTE's explore the topic of shitty and pointless questions. Buddha is saying that those types of questions don't matter because they won't help one reach the goal of Nirvana.

Oh, e.g. "does god exist"?

right?

Here's the basic set of questions:

"These theories which The Blessed One has left unelucidated, has set aside and rejected,--that the world is eternal, that the world is not eternal, that the world is finite, that the world is infinite, that the soul and the body are identical, that the soul is one thing and the body another, that the saint exists after death, that the saint does not exist after death, that the saint both exists and does not exist after death, that the saint neither exists nor does not exist after death,--these The Blessed One does not elucidate to me. And the fact that The Blessed One does not elucidate them to me does not please me nor suit me. Therefore I will draw near to The Blessed One and inquire of him concerning this matter. If The Blessed One will elucidate to me, either that the world is eternal, or that the world is not eternal, or that the world is finite, or that the world is infinite, or that the soul and the body are identical, or that the soul is one thing and the body another, or that the saint exists after death, or that the saint does not exist after death, or that the saint both exists and does not exist after death, or that the saint neither exists nor does not exist after death, in that case will I lead the religious life under The Blessed One. If The Blessed One will not elucidate to me, either that the world is eternal, or that the world is not eternal, . . . or that the saint neither exists

[nietzsche]

Some time ago I read and came to understand that the problem with many mind troubling questions is not in the answers, but in the questions themselves.

That such questions are bound to make you unhappy however you want to see the matter, and the solution is not in finding a deep answer but in not asking such questions.

Sounds ambiguos but it helped me a lot.

I don't know if it's the topic, I got if from Crazy's answer to BBS, didn't read the article, I'm a lazy mexican't.

[jonesthecurl]

That Buddha chappie goes on a bit, doesn't he?

[Haggis_McMutton]

Sorry for the shitty spacing in the title, there wasn't enough room for it all. Anyhow:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bits/bits013.htm

What do you think about the idea of Questions that tend not to Edification? We'll call them QTE's for short. Do you think that its a worthwhile concept, or just a philosophic cop out?

I personally find it to be one of the most memorable ideas that I got from Buddhism course that took a couple years back.

I think it's clear there are some "questions that don't lead to edification".
The trickier part seems to be in figuring out which questions are worthwhile and which aren't.

Btw, not worth making a new thread for this, but anyone have any opinion on the Tao Te Ching ?

[Nola_Lifer]

"The Tathâgata, O Vaccha, is free from all theories; but this, Vaccha, does The Tathâgata know,--the nature of form, and how form arises, and how form perishes; the nature of sensation, and how sensation arises, and how sensation perishes; the nature of perception, and how perception arises, and how perception perishes; the nature of the predispositions, and how the predispositions arise, and how the predispositions perish; the nature of consciousness, and how consciousness arises, and how consciousness perishes. Therefore say I that The Tathâgata has attained deliverance and is free from attachment, inasmuch as all imaginings, or agitations, or proud thoughts concerning an Ego or anything pertaining to an Ego, have perished, have faded away, have ceased, have been given up and relinquished."

What the Vaccha speaks of here is the fire he speaks about below. Gotama wants to know why the fire goes this way or that way, just as your mind creates forms, sensations, perceptions, predispositions, consciousness, ego, etc. Vaccha then explain to Gotama don't worry in which way they arise find the reason why these fire burns. What are the seeds or the spark that creates these things mentioned above. Once you control the fuel for the fire you can control in which direction the fire runs.

"But, Vaccha, if some one were to ask you, 'In which direction has that fire gone,--east, or west, or north, or south?' what would you say, O Vaccha?"

"The question would not fit the case, Gotama. For the fire which depended on fuel of grass and wood, when that fuel has all gone, and it can get no other, being thus without nutriment, is said to be extinct."

"In exactly the same way, Vaccha, all form by which one could predicate the existence of the saint, all that form has been abandoned, uprooted, pulled out of the ground like a palmyra-tree, and become non-existent and not liable to spring up again in the future. The saint, O Vaccha, who has been released from what is styled form, is deep, immeasurable, unfathomable, like the mighty ocean. To say that he is reborn would not fit the case. To say that he is not reborn would not fit the case. To say that he is both reborn and not reborn would not fit the case. To say that he is neither reborn nor not reborn would not fit the case.

The last paragraph describes enlightenment or in this specific case morality/edification. He speaks about the saint who is neither born, reborn, not reborn, not not reborn, etc. He cannot answer the question of rebirth because it isn't as simple as waking up and being born again. The 4 noble truths tells us that:

The truth of dukkha (suffering, anxiety, dissatisfaction)
The truth of the origin of dukkha
The truth of the cessation of dukkha
The truth of the path leading to the cessation of dukkha

Each situation you are still the same person but each step gets you closer to edification. You may be changed but you are still the same person. The thing to realize is once you get all the shit out of your head you become more of yourself. You become more of the person of who you are suppose to be.

[Crazyirishman]

Sorry for the shitty spacing in the title, there wasn't enough room for it all. Anyhow:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/bits/bits013.htm

What do you think about the idea of Questions that tend not to Edification? We'll call them QTE's for short. Do you think that its a worthwhile concept, or just a philosophic cop out?

I personally find it to be one of the most memorable ideas that I got from Buddhism course that took a couple years back.

I think it's clear there are some "questions that don't lead to edification".
The trickier part seems to be in figuring out which questions are worthwhile and which aren't.

Btw, not worth making a new thread for this, but anyone have any opinion on the Tao Te Ching ?

I do have opinions about it. I will include that as the next topic in the Philosophical disscussion series.

[Haggis_McMutton]

Just remembered this piece on a similar subject. (discriminating between useful and useless beliefs)

I'll quote it since it's relatively short.

Thus begins the ancient parable:

If a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound? One says, "Yes it does, for it makes vibrations in the air." Another says, "No it does not, for there is no auditory processing in any brain."

Suppose that, after the tree falls, the two walk into the forest together. Will one expect to see the tree fallen to the right, and the other expect to see the tree fallen to the left? Suppose that before the tree falls, the two leave a sound recorder next to the tree. Would one, playing back the recorder, expect to hear something different from the other? Suppose they attach an electroencephalograph to any brain in the world; would one expect to see a different trace than the other? Though the two argue, one saying "No," and the other saying "Yes," they do not anticipate any different experiences. The two think they have different models of the world, but they have no difference with respect to what they expect will happen to them.


It's tempting to try to eliminate this mistake class by insisting that the only legitimate kind of belief is an anticipation of sensory experience. But the world does, in fact, contain much that is not sensed directly. We don't see the atoms underlying the brick, but the atoms are in fact there. There is a floor beneath your feet, but you don't experience the floor directly; you see the light reflected from the floor, or rather, you see what your retina and visual cortex have processed of that light. To infer the floor from seeing the floor is to step back into the unseen causes of experience. It may seem like a very short and direct step, but it is still a step.

You stand on top of a tall building, next to a grandfather clock with an hour, minute, and ticking second hand. In your hand is a bowling ball, and you drop it off the roof. On which tick of the clock will you hear the crash of the bowling ball hitting the ground?

To answer precisely, you must use beliefs like Earth's gravity is 9.8 meters per second per second, and This building is around 120 meters tall. These beliefs are not wordless anticipations of a sensory experience; they are verbal-ish, propositional. It probably does not exaggerate much to describe these two beliefs as sentences made out of words. But these two beliefs have an inferential consequence that is a direct sensory anticipation—if the clock's second hand is on the 12 numeral when you drop the ball, you anticipate seeing it on the 1 numeral when you hear the crash five seconds later. To anticipate sensory experiences as precisely as possible, we must process beliefs that are not anticipations of sensory experience.

It is a great strength of Homo sapiens that we can, better than any other species in the world, learn to model the unseen. It is also one of our great weak points. Humans often believe in things that are not only unseen but unreal.

The same brain that builds a network of inferred causes behind sensory experience, can also build a network of causes that is not connected to sensory experience, or poorly connected. Alchemists believed that phlogiston caused fire—we could oversimply their minds by drawing a little node labeled "Phlogiston", and an arrow from this node to their sensory experience of a crackling campfire—but this belief yielded no advance predictions; the link from phlogiston to experience was always configured after the experience, rather than constraining the experience in advance. Or suppose your postmodern English professor teaches you that the famous writer Wulky Wilkinsen is actually a "post-utopian". What does this mean you should expect from his books? Nothing. The belief, if you can call it that, doesn't connect to sensory experience at all. But you had better remember the propositional assertion that "Wulky Wilkinsen" has the "post-utopian" attribute, so you can regurgitate it on the upcoming quiz. Likewise if "post-utopians" show "colonial alienation"; if the quiz asks whether Wulky Wilkinsen shows colonial alienation, you'd better answer yes. The beliefs are connected to each other, though still not connected to any anticipated experience.

We can build up whole networks of beliefs that are connected only to each other—call these "floating" beliefs. It is a uniquely human flaw among animal species, a perversion of Homo sapiens's ability to build more general and flexible belief networks.

The rationalist virtue of empiricism consists of constantly asking which experiences our beliefs predict—or better yet, prohibit. Do you believe that phlogiston is the cause of fire? Then what do you expect to see happen, because of that? Do you believe that Wulky Wilkinsen is a post-utopian? Then what do you expect to see because of that? No, not "colonial alienation"; what experience will happen to you? Do you believe that if a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, it still makes a sound? Then what experience must therefore befall you?

It is even better to ask: what experience must not happen to you? Do you believe that elan vital explains the mysterious aliveness of living beings? Then what does this belief not allow to happen—what would definitely falsify this belief? A null answer means that your belief does not constrain experience; it permits anything to happen to you. It floats.

When you argue a seemingly factual question, always keep in mind which difference of anticipation you are arguing about. If you can't find the difference of anticipation, you're probably arguing about labels in your belief network—or even worse, floating beliefs, barnacles on your network. If you don't know what experiences are implied by Wulky Wilkinsen being a post-utopian, you can go on arguing forever. (You can also publish papers forever.)

Above all, don't ask what to believe—ask what to anticipate. Every question of belief should flow from a question of anticipation, and that question of anticipation should be the center of the inquiry. Every guess of belief should begin by flowing to a specific guess of anticipation, and should continue to pay rent in future anticipations. If a belief turns deadbeat, evict it.

If we accept the framework of useful and useless beliefs, perhaps QTEs are simply questions that pertain only to useless beliefs.

[nietzsche]

UHm.. useful and not useful..

I think that it would more useful to consider what is the natural normal state of being. Being in distress seems to be so natural these days, but the truth closest at hand, without getting philosophical about the metaphysics and ontology because we know where that take us, would be that babies are naturally at ease. THat is when they are not sick, not hungry, not pooped. They seem to laugh about anything and enjoy their time. Distress we learn. We get so educated and trained, we think we gotta solve everything in our head. We get stuck. We make of a simple thought of worry a belief. We create a matrix of worry/distress core belies. Voila, you got depression, anxiety and all the maladies.

inb4 I'm shown that babies are not naturally at ease and that depression is completely genetical.

[BigBallinStalin]

In other words, drop all responsibility and have your parents care for you completely?

There can be no fulfillment without conflict.

[nietzsche]

In other words, drop all responsibility and have your parents care for you completely?

There can be no fulfillment without conflict.

Conflict seems too far from despair.

[BigBallinStalin]

In other words, drop all responsibility and have your parents care for you completely?

There can be no fulfillment without conflict.

Conflict seems too far from despair.

Chin up, nietz. 89% of things going for you are going well.

[nietzsche]

In other words, drop all responsibility and have your parents care for you completely?

There can be no fulfillment without conflict.

Conflict seems too far from despair.

Chin up, nietz. 89% of things going for you are going well.

backstabber

[BigBallinStalin]

Nobody in here get sloppy!





Or else:

THE KITTEN GETS IT.

[Haggis_McMutton]

UHm.. useful and not useful..

I think that it would more useful to consider what is the natural normal state of being. Being in distress seems to be so natural these days, but the truth closest at hand, without getting philosophical about the metaphysics and ontology because we know where that take us, would be that babies are naturally at ease. THat is when they are not sick, not hungry, not pooped. They seem to laugh about anything and enjoy their time. Distress we learn. We get so educated and trained, we think we gotta solve everything in our head. We get stuck. We make of a simple thought of worry a belief. We create a matrix of worry/distress core belies. Voila, you got depression, anxiety and all the maladies.

inb4 I'm shown that babies are not naturally at ease and that depression is completely genetical.

Is happiness the goal of life? If so is there any difference between happiness arising from eating when you are hungry and happiness arising from building an empire?
Would you take the blue pill ?

[nietzsche]

UHm.. useful and not useful..

I think that it would more useful to consider what is the natural normal state of being. Being in distress seems to be so natural these days, but the truth closest at hand, without getting philosophical about the metaphysics and ontology because we know where that take us, would be that babies are naturally at ease. THat is when they are not sick, not hungry, not pooped. They seem to laugh about anything and enjoy their time. Distress we learn. We get so educated and trained, we think we gotta solve everything in our head. We get stuck. We make of a simple thought of worry a belief. We create a matrix of worry/distress core belies. Voila, you got depression, anxiety and all the maladies.

inb4 I'm shown that babies are not naturally at ease and that depression is completely genetical.

Is happiness the goal of life? If so is there any difference between happiness arising from eating when you are hungry and happiness arising from building an empire?
Would you take the blue pill ?

I really doubt asceticism as a goal is good for the person overall. That having been said, since we choose our 'project', our meaning in life, I guess it can be done. But it would take some effort though.

And happiness cannot be a goal IMO, happiness is an attitude one chooses, in spite of circumstances. Pursuing a goal that is personally worthy brings fulfillment and happiness.

When you are hungry and eat you are going from one state of physical being to another, better state. This is completely organical. Building an empire is another type of happiness. This brings to point the definition of emotions, I think there are not only those emotions we describe with words, but more likely there are emotions that feel good and emotions that feel bad, in an analogous scale. Everything else is analogous in our existence, why this has to be discrete.

I would never take the blue pill, how boring. I'd rather struggle, and struggle to make it so that it's not a struggle anymore. In the case atheists bet on, that there's nothing after death, and that all the effort is of no use, this also works, in the attitude of "well... the struggle has to end some day, and I win no points from suffering, so what the heck, I might as well enjoy my struggle".

[BigBallinStalin]

UHm.. useful and not useful..

I think that it would more useful to consider what is the natural normal state of being. Being in distress seems to be so natural these days, but the truth closest at hand, without getting philosophical about the metaphysics and ontology because we know where that take us, would be that babies are naturally at ease. THat is when they are not sick, not hungry, not pooped. They seem to laugh about anything and enjoy their time. Distress we learn. We get so educated and trained, we think we gotta solve everything in our head. We get stuck. We make of a simple thought of worry a belief. We create a matrix of worry/distress core belies. Voila, you got depression, anxiety and all the maladies.

inb4 I'm shown that babies are not naturally at ease and that depression is completely genetical.

Is happiness the goal of life? If so is there any difference between happiness arising from eating when you are hungry and happiness arising from building an empire?
Would you take the blue pill ?

I really doubt asceticism as a goal is good for the person overall. That having been said, since we choose our 'project', our meaning in life, I guess it can be done. But it would take some effort though.

And happiness cannot be a goal IMO, happiness is an attitude one chooses, in spite of circumstances. Pursuing a goal that is personally worthy brings fulfillment and happiness.

Fulfillment? Sure. Happiness? No, not always.

For Aristotle, eudaemonia consists in doing the right thing, at the right time, with the right degree, toward the right people. Eudaemonia is misunderstood as an emotion like happiness, but it is not so. Virtue is not within the emotions. Eudaemonia, or rather virtuous activity, is discovered from others and practiced habitually.

Happiness itself shouldn't be the goal of life.

[nietzsche]

UHm.. useful and not useful..

I think that it would more useful to consider what is the natural normal state of being. Being in distress seems to be so natural these days, but the truth closest at hand, without getting philosophical about the metaphysics and ontology because we know where that take us, would be that babies are naturally at ease. THat is when they are not sick, not hungry, not pooped. They seem to laugh about anything and enjoy their time. Distress we learn. We get so educated and trained, we think we gotta solve everything in our head. We get stuck. We make of a simple thought of worry a belief. We create a matrix of worry/distress core belies. Voila, you got depression, anxiety and all the maladies.

inb4 I'm shown that babies are not naturally at ease and that depression is completely genetical.

Is happiness the goal of life? If so is there any difference between happiness arising from eating when you are hungry and happiness arising from building an empire?
Would you take the blue pill ?

I really doubt asceticism as a goal is good for the person overall. That having been said, since we choose our 'project', our meaning in life, I guess it can be done. But it would take some effort though.

And happiness cannot be a goal IMO, happiness is an attitude one chooses, in spite of circumstances. Pursuing a goal that is personally worthy brings fulfillment and happiness.

Fulfillment? Sure. Happiness? No, not always.

For Aristotle, eudaemonia consists in doing the right thing, at the right time, with the right degree, toward the right people. Eudaemonia is misunderstood as an emotion like happiness, but it is not so. Virtue is not within the emotions. Eudaemonia, or rather virtuous activity, is discovered from others and practiced habitually.

Happiness itself shouldn't be the goal of life.

Not always but it can be, right? Don't get me wrong, I get your point and I think you are right but I don't see how you can take only one minute part of all I said and make it look as if I was wrong.

Happiness can be a virtue. Happiness is chosen as one's attitude.

[BigBallinStalin]

I see; I wanted something clarified.

To nitpick, happiness is an emotion, or as some translators of Aristotle call it: a "mental faculty." Virtues are distinct from emotions though.
Virtues are more of a guideline, with a mean and two extremes, excess and deficit/insufficiency.

How can happiness be chosen? Does the bipolar person choose to be very upset and then happy a few days later? In what sense does one 'choose' an emotion?