Can humans reach enlightenment?

Discussion in 'Eastern Philosophy' started by Grantywanty, Nov 1, 2007.

  1. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    1,888
    I am still missing why you brought it up. Are you saying that my use of the lego example is like the Koan?

    Here it sounds like you are agreeing with me.







    The latter is not something I would suggest. The former raises issues of continuity, of whether it is the same self, later in time. It seems to me directly parallel to the lego house only on a vastly more complicated level.



    Our personality and our skills, the atoms that make us up, the hormonal ratios, our behavior, habits, interests, relationships, total mass, skills.....
    You may disagree, but it seems to me the questioning of a self continuing through time has some merit to it. And you say 'sense of identity'. I am not sure that we are actually comparing our sense of ourselves over time or even if we have the skill to discern that we are the same. We think of ourselves as being the same, but that could be cultural or at one point necessary to survival. I am not sure why we should trust that sense, given all the changes that take place.





    What evidence is there that there is a continuous self? Keep in mind how we accept evidence for sameness in other cases for physical objects. What other physical objects can you change all the matter in - even gradually over time - and a fairly wide range of qualities including mass, ratios of chemicals, etc. and still say it is the same object?
     
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  3. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    I cannot see why you kep on about the koan. It is a nonsense question in the same way as your Lego house or the philosopher's beard. To clap has a specific definition from which it follows that one hand cannot clap. If Zen monks wish to use such non-questions to achieve some end, that's fine by me, but it doesn't change the nature of the ( non- ) question.

    Change at the atomic level. I suggest that your article is a loose definition of what goes on in the human body ,to make it intelligible.

    Consider change at the atomic level. There is no distinction between one atom of carbon and another, So substituting one for another makes no difference to the organ.

    The aging process is , as I suggested, the result of faulty copying, i.e., a loss of information. So, an organ can be said to be gradually disintegrating to the point where we die.

    The evidence that my sense of self remains is that if I see a photograph of myself when I was a child I can recognize my " self" and relate it to how I am now. A different personality, same identity.

    I cannot understand your preoccupation with the question of same self or different self. If you were to conclude that you had a different self each morning, what would you do differently from what you do now ?

    What evidence can you offer to suggest that we have different selves or however you would express it. For the sake of argument let's call it our core identity. I have offered evidence in terms of a personal history. In what way is this argument flawed. ? Your article does not addrress this issue; it merely describes what is happening to our bodies as we age. That is how I read it.
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2007
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  5. Donnal Registered Member

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    i think when you put tapes in a kiddy business and find out their a dirty kiddy business
    and after you send the tapes to the news people and different countries of course
    that could be quite enlightening cause you feel really bloody good that you have gave kids a chance and got these mungrel kiddy scum out in the open and there australian dept of child safety in roma qld
    yep its bloody enlightening all bloody right
    feels good
     
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  7. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    I could swear you brought it up. If I did, my apologies. If you did, well, I've been trying to figure out why.

    I thought it was pretty clear. I encountered references to the study elsewhere on the net. They tracked atoms and found that atoms are replaced in the body at a rapid rate.

    Not in terms of function, but in terms of identity.

    yes, primarily a separate issue, but one of the many changes that seems excluded by simply saying the self continues through time.

    1) if you were amnesiac and didn't would you no longer be yourself
    2) what is to this is more than mere convention? I am not saying we do not have information about our younger selves.
    3) I also recognize my parents in photos, but I am not them. Perhaps all I 'recognize' is that the images I have recorded were from the vantage of that child.
    4) That child had not seen that photo. Another, albeit minute, difference. Much of what you know about that child that child did not know. Your whole perspective is another difference. And of course a good deal of it is distorted or not quite correct. Witnesses are quite unreliable.

    That is not the point. I am trying to find out why you and Sarkus are so sure - I am not sure either of you is - that your selves continue through time. This is a philosophy forum under the heading of Eastern Philosophy. I can't see why you see this as so odd.

    The article backed up the idea that the atoms are replaced. I included the whole article which ends up focusing on aging. But it begins by referring to a study that specifically showed via radioactive atoms that the atoms in the body are replaced at a rapid rate. I cannot understand how this wouldn't give one a moments pause to wonder about the continuity of the self. Bodies are made of atoms. If in one year 98%of the atoms are replaced after one year, after 20 we are talking about a very low % left of the original ones. I think it is obvious why, especially in a discussion with someone who does not believe in souls or some non-corporeal about the self, one can bring up the question and explore it. That's what a lot of us do here, we explore things. I would love it if you came back with what was to me a convincing answer to why this is the same self. In any case I find it an interesting puzzle.

    By the way I thought of a good answer to my last question in the last post:
    the sun. This is an object that obviously undergoes changes and is losing some matter and gaining some matter, yet we refer to it as the same object over time. I think it has vastly more integrity over time than the human body, but still, it's a good comeback.

    I do, absolutely, think that it is useful to speak about 'me' back then and 'what I will do when I retire' but I am curious about seeing if this must in fact reflect reality. I am not convinced. If you find it trying that I keep on this way you can ignore me.

    As far as the change being gradual rather than discrete, I would guess there are a number of studies that show that we do not notice changes as well when they are gradual: the frog in slowly raised to boiling water idea - perhaps this is an urban legend, but I doubt the phenomenon is. I did take sensory physiology and though it's been twenty years I am quite sure the body is less likely to sense gradual change, as compared to rapid changes, even if the final amount of change is the same. The gradual nature of the change can easily make it seem like some fundamental change is not taking place. But this does not mean it is not.

    Where is the self that is the same when I was ten and now? What is it composed of? And if the answer is things that are not the same, why do we hold that the higher order object is the same when the components are not?
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2007
  8. Learned Hand Registered Senior Member

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    361
    I'll just keep my answer simple. The Age of Reason (Enlightment) as history classifies it, occurred during the 18th Century. Influential persons on the "dawn of reason" include Voltaire, Swift, Pope, Kant, Locke, Hobbes and many other philosophers, essayists, and writers. The Enlightenment Period shifted to the "Romantic Movement" near the end of Napolean's reign (early 1800s).
     
  9. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    5,553
    I think we have reached an impasse as I cannot think what else to say on the subject. You cannot accept what I regard as evidence for continuity and I can find no support for discontinuity at a level which would suggest a succession of "Is".

    I cannot prove my claim but I believe the evidence I can adduce is better than anything you have offered.

    I have a suggestion. Put your question to Shannon Fowler, author of the article in Health and Science and, when you have had a response publish it on this thread. We can then attempt to sort things out from there.

    I am not baiting you. I offer this suggestion most sincerely, as I should be very interested if the response you get is significantly different from my explanation. I am open to persuasion by reasoned argument.

    Addition. I have re-read the article and can find nothing in it to contradict my explanation
     
    Last edited: Nov 29, 2007
  10. Myles Registered Senior Member

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  11. Grantywanty Registered Senior Member

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    1,888
    I think it should have been clear that I included the article not because it disproved your position on a continuous 'I' but in response to you saying there were no studies that backed up my idea that the atoms in the body are replaced. The article uses the study as a jumping off point and focuses other other issues that bolster neither of our positions.

    You haven't responded to the question of whether amnesiacs are no longer the same person or consciousness.

    This is a link to an essay describing some of the problems of using psychological approaches to justify persistence through time.
    http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/identity-personal/
    I happy to drop my discussion here with you Myles.
    Susan Fowler is not the person I would want to speak with. I'd prefer the authors of the study tracking atoms though the body. I can't believe the last time this was done was 1953. I would be interested in hearing what the scientists who found this result, themselves thought about the finding in relation to personal identity through time. Their answers are not priviledged - since their expertise had to do with the tracking of atoms, but nevertheless they were on the front lines of discovering information that is disturbing, even if the conclusions drawn from it are not clear.
    take care.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2007
  12. Myles Registered Senior Member

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    5,553
     
  13. genep Guest

    SELF's fiction

    Enlightenment, SELF-realization: when life appears no more real than a dream,
    the SELF's fiction, the totality of thoughts, the Universe.

    -- really reality
     
  14. Frud11 Banned Banned

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    567
    How's this?

    Information is what we are 'made' out of: every thing we have ever eaten. every breath, every photon, every touch, smell and taste = you, it's what you have 'measured' so far in 'the world'.

    This 'information' has arrived from the world of chaos thanks to something called 'selection'.
    W H Zurek and co., apparently think they know all about selection, and Quantum Darwinism. We're still stuck (understanding-wise), on how, exactly, this 'eigenselection' occurs: something to do with 'pointer states', and 'availability';

    The observer and the information are inseparable; the information is the observer.

    Information has mass and energy. The universe is information.
    Life is a channel for the information that 'makes' it: that becomes its substance. Like a message with only one possible answer.
     
  15. Tnerb Banned Banned

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    This will sound weird but Frud, and everybody:

    You ever played Draqon Quest VIII?
    Frud here sounds just like one of the main characters big brother.... Anyone agree?


    And so, now on to my point.

    I have thus far in the thread, read only certain things specifically I scanned over the opening post. I found Baron Max's response. On the first page (the obvious usually wins over, however sometimes the reverse is true); and anyhow, I had found some evidence to support cell research. All of th is information is entirely obvious and cna be dismissed by nobody.

    A pretty key point and element to the whole thing.

    What is enlightenment?
    The thread starter is asking this question yes he is.
    In my opinion, it is impossible for someone to reach enlightenment. Okay. Sounds odd or fishy. Ok. In my opinion, it is possible for someone to reach enlightenment. Obviously the answer lies within the two categories and some serious devations off of each one.

    Considering first that a defination to the idea of enlightenment would be a necessary as well.

    However, everyone considers all of my questions to be the most obvious questions in existence although they are far ahead of every single one of your "obvious" questions

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    Which perhaps is one of the most halarious things that I have ever encountered, if has ever been presented before.

    Irregardless let me move on.

    Enlightenment is simply self.
    Can a self achieve a state of supreme bliss? Is that the goal.
    Or is it "removal" of self?
    You can't remove self.
    What are we refering to?
    Obviously we're refering to achiving enlightnement.
    Correct?

    ;-) So, what does this pertain.
    Contain. My bad.
    Some people may achieve what they think is an enlightenment.
    Or other people may think that that person is "enlightend."
    Sure. He may be. In his opinion.
    He isn't though, fully enlightend. It's impossible as I was saying. You can't have someone who is a God. Someone who is fully ridden from the world. It's impossible.

    There are some very deep propositions in this muddle of writing.

    I do wonder if it is even readable.
     
  16. Tangerine Registered Member

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    4
    Hey everyone! i just stubled across this forum searching for something and came across this thread, sorry for bumping it since its old but i feel like putting word in. also i apologize if i sound like I'm preaching to you haha.

    Enlightenment is very possible for humans and i feel it is easier than alot of people would think but in no way is it an easy process. if you have a good heart and search for it i feel almost anyone can reach it. I have reached what would be called enlightenment. to me it is basically becoming the entire cosmic brain. You know how they say everything is one.. well it is basically beyond the feeling of oneness and becoming one.
    the key is to get rid of your ego, your ego is the only the only thing separating youreself from everything. this includes getting rid of fear, insecurity, hate, judgment, all attachments and anything else holding you to your physical self.
    i feel that Love is also one of the keys, not the love most people think of for one person but pure love for everything, projecting love to everything, love shatters the illusion of separation. Now i might just sound like a love spreading hippie but it is very possible and easy. When it comes down to it pure love is all you need to experience oneness and enlightenment.
    Though becoming one is beyond good, bad, evil and even love because everything is on the same spectrum. it is pure bliss, pure nothingness but i do feel that love is very close to it because pure love just is what it is..

    There is a process known as the kundalini awakening which is what i went though and what is necessary for enlightenment, self realization.. whatever you want to call (at least i think it is necessary, I'm not totally sure about that statement). Also, alot of people believe that it is the next step for human evolution.
    Kundalini brings up everything... all your beliefs, basically your past and everything you ever thought or believed is all brought up until you fully clear it and this can cause alot of mental trauma if you aren't ready or don't know what your going through.. getting over the fear of death is just one small step. You go though amazing mystical experiences but also the agonies of the mentally ill. It can be awakened many ways such as meditation, yoga, contemplation and even just mental stress.

    Weather you believe in anything spiritual or not consciousness is obviously real and reaching that state of consciousness is known as neuro atomic consciousness. It has been studied by scientists such as timothy Leary. Even though this is not reccomended by me you can reach it on the drugs DMT (dimethyltryptamine) and Ketamine.
    Here is a good website to check out that describes the 8 circuts of consciousness
    __________________ (sorry i coulden't post it due to my post count but if you want it just p.m ne or something)


    Overall my answer to your question is that yes enlightenment is possible to reach and not as far fetched as it may seem. A shaman i talked to told me to keep in mind that we were not fully there yet and that it was just like looking through a window which is an important thing to remember. Also i do not walk around with that awareness all the time, sometimes i try to explore that awareness with my physical mind and sometimes I can't even visit it. it is not the end of our lives though i do feel it is a big step. It might even just be one more step for our minds! To me having that experience wasn't the end but the beginning of realizing our true potential!

    I can't be sure of anything though and sorry if anything i said was confusing or disorganized. Also, I didn't want to stray from the question and what was really important to my personal expierences but if anyone would like to know id be glad to share them with you!


    And sisyphus, i understand where your coming from. I truley think that if you stay in the enlightened state long enough your body will die so i guess in a sense it is impossible to be fully enlightened all the time in the physical but you can still expierence what enlightenment is if that makes sense.
     
  17. kmguru Staff Member

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  18. Tangerine Registered Member

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    4
    Thanks man. Nah i dont think so. I might have had an account there but i don't think it was Tangerine, I just kinda made this name up when i registered haha.
     
  19. Joeman Eviiiiiiiil Clown Registered Senior Member

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    How do you define enlightenment? Various traditions have different definitions. I think Masonic definition of enlightenment is very different from Buddhist definition.

    How do you reach Buddhist enlightenment? Very difficult. Buddhist defines enlightenment as "awakening as the intuitive awareness of unity and dissolving our attachment to egoic consciousness" (plundered from Adyashanti.org)

    How do you dissolve your own ego? That's the hardest part. You first have to use your egoic mind as an instrument for basic understanding like what to do and what not to do, and then you have to free yourself from the very same egoic mind which you use to obtain the understanding. Do you see how impossible that is? You use your mind with the purpose of eventually freeing yourself from your mind. It has been done before but almost impossible.

    It would nice if there is some sort of external deity that is helping and guilding us through the process if any one of us is attempting such thing. I don't know if such diety exists or not.
     
  20. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    You can't define it, but it's easy to find. That's the problem, it's far to easy.
     
  21. VossistArts 3MTA3 Registered Senior Member

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    Enlightment isnt a final resting place, its not like its all off then all of a sudden all on. Enlightenment happens mostly in little steps, occasionally in large ones. So everyone has their enlightenment. All it is a realization(s) of some kind of truth. And even with the Buddha, its said He was completely enlightened. Even thought they say that I somehow imagine they had to be referring to his enlightenment in context this world we all share. I think there should be more than just this. Or did the Buddha just cease to exist after attaining his complete enlightenment?
     
  22. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    Yes, he ceased to exist.
     
  23. VossistArts 3MTA3 Registered Senior Member

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    At a glance that seems a little pointless.
     

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