How do the Vedas refute solipsism?

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The point of examining the different pramanas is not to say that all claims about the nature of reality are equally valid - in fact much of vedic commentaries are about discussing which authorities of knowledge are superior/inferior to others. Looking at the different pramanas simply tells us from what angle individuals are arguing from (even if they are arguing that the notion of individuality is an illusion).

I'm not sure how it sabotages the effort.
I don't know whether the purport of SB 3.26.30 is helpful or not

Doubt, misapprehension, correct apprehension, memory and sleep, as determined by their different functions, are said to be the distinct characteristics of intelligence.

SOmetimes knowldge is broken down to three articles.

1. There is the knowable.
2. There is the process of knowing.
3. And there is the knower.

Taken together, they form knowledge (or to put it another way, you cannot discuss an aspect of knowledge that doesn't touch on all three).

For instance take a claim of knowledge about the growth of beans.
There is the given about beans and their environment that renders them knowable.
There is the means by which a person came to understand the claim.
And there is the person making the claim

Now take the instance of impersonal realization explained as being where the knowable, the process of knowing and the knower are non-different.

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I'm not sure that I understand exactly what you are trying to indicate as the problem. Popularly a lot of contemporary authority in knowledge is simply based on sense perception. Key issues of what we are "seeing" with are bypassed (or even rendered subservient to external perception - eg consciousness is chemicals etc etc).
Even then, this paradigm is assailed by many criticisms (such as social constructionism/constructivism for eg .. or even the break down in category between soft and hard science in order to acknowledge what is practically "doable")

to which the advaitist would no doubt respond "that's because you don't understand that cognition itself has issues of abhava" (needless to say, its a waste of time to think you will ever understand an explanation of the akash)

more precisely its the manner that the individual engages in things. IOW its not simply a case of "well if you're sick of water skiing perhaps you should try macrame" but more a case of engaging in activity without the sense of "I am the doer/enjoyer" - basically thats what ahankara (or false ego is) - namely the sense of "I am the enjoyer/doer" that arises from activity. For a gross materialist there is no scope for any other sort of ego, hence the claims of buddhism/mayavadi come to the table for as long one doesn't have the means to dovetail their propensities in the service of god.

I don't think I have heard that one.
Is it online?

If a person is less informed the best course is that they get informed.
If there are issues that inhibit the act of becoming informed, the material world simply calls the shots by default (with the ultimate aim of bringing them to a position of becoming informed).

Its kind of like there is the fast track and the slow track

Buddha does appear to make a point on not bothering to venture in to discussion of the soul.

Jesus does appear to make a point on not bothering to venture in to discussion on the house of his father.

Mohamed does appear to make a point on not bothering to venture in to discussion on the form of god.

This doesn't render these three paths futile

Thats what Buddha did in essence "don't bother with the vedas, just listen to me and don't sacrifice animals for the sake of your palate"

SImilarly there is the argument of how Sankaracharya paved the way for Lord caitanya and the coming acharyas (by reintroducing the vedas within a buddhist paradigm)

Its more the case that one will (or should) act according to one's highest capacity.
In whatever field of knowledge one may discuss, there always tends to be persons that are higher ("I know less than ...") and persons that are lesser ("I know more than ...") than us . The greater perspective on who is the greatest and who is the lowest may be something else though (hence the unique importance of BG as it is - "Here's god, and here's his opinion")


“

both

means all the problems getting solved are simply avoiding problems of destruction/impairment.

yup

sure
same quality as god
just different quantity (namely infinite vs infinitesimal)

there's the popular story from bhaktisiddhanta about the beggar who was so frail that he was holding onto a tree to stand up. Taking pity on him, a merchant wished to give him some alms but the beggar wailed "I cannot let go of the tree so I can't accept the alms" ... even though with the alms he could solve his issues of frailty.
SO its kind of like that. Its not that maya has a hold on us but rather we have a hold on maya ( ...... perhaps until some benevolent personality rips our palm from the tree and stuffs money in our hand and says "take it!")

The strength of the living entity is solely and wholly relegated to desire. Not even god will interfere with that.


“

Sure

Even great tyagis go to great lengths to secure the opulence of renunciation

I think it places a great division in the world which allows one to say "this is mine" and "this is gods" (or "since this is god, this is what god owes me/is trying his best to give me" ... IOW I have a better plans for myself than god). Religiosity performed in such a mindset is unnecessarily complex.

 

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Why is it considered a great monster?
Why are you so troubled by it?

 

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It's as personalist as can be.
It is not impersonal.
If they're imaginary, they're not persons.

 

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With solipsism, there is only 1 authority.

 

It's not radical at all.
The vedic references to diversity describe this world as we know it. Otherwise it clearly says we are all parts of 1 being.
There is no significant difference except parts of the 1 being are here in this world & parts of it are elsewhere. All life is inherently connected to the source of "necessities".

 

I have so far assumed that one has some choice about which pramana to hold as an authority. Is this indeed so, is there an element of choice?

It has been my experience that choosing "a way to arrive at knowledge" or choosing "a source of truth" is usually contested, and many counterarguments seem reasonable enough:

Someone says "I go by my experience", and someone counters "No, that is insufficient, there are things you haven't experienced but which are or could be nonetheless true. So by relying only on your experience, you are missing a lot."
"We should keep to tradition. "- "No, we should keep up-to-date."
"I trust the old sages." - "That is like saying no living person can produce any relevant knowledge, which is like spitting in the face of humanity!"
"I go by what science tells me." - "This is insufficient, as science deals only with theories. We need something more solid to base our lives on."
"I trust the scriptures." - "There is no proof that the scriptures are actually from God, so they cannot be relied on as if they would be from God."
...
"I go by what tradition, the old sages, scriptures, logic, science, common sense, experience, other people .... tell me." - "Well then you are probably so confused that you can't get yourself to do anything."

So on the whole, choosing a pramana or a set of them seems like sabotaging one's efforts to find out the truth, since every pramana can be and is disputed. Eventually, we have come so far that we even tend to think truth doesn't matter anyway (google "truth is irrelevant", for example).

And intelligence is still material energy, still a matter of being subject to the modes of material nature - and thus change the mode, change the intelligence?

Exactly. But tell that to our resident scientists!

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For a gross materialist there is no scope for any other sort of ego?
This is very new to me. I find it hard to believe that any person would not have a scope for other kinds of ego, other than the materialistic one. I mean, to me, materialists of various kinds seem to be perfectly confident that they have explored all possible options, but then decided to consider themselves as doers/enjoyers - because the way they speak, the confidence they exhude, to me, only someone who has really "done the research" would speak like that. I know or know of people with PhD's in philosophy - which means they are well aware of what the world's philosophies have to offer - yet they are materialists, sometimes gross materialists. I am inclined to think that someone who has studied the world's philosophies and passed exams, but still decided to be a materialist, that such a person is proof that there is nothing substantial to the claims about spiritual existence that various philosophies make.

To think otherwise, would usually mean academic/intellectual suicide.
How do you propose that such a suicide could be avoided?
How can a person live in the Western wolrd, but hold that it is completely possible that highly educated people still can have a low level of consciousness, be gross materialists?
To me, this presents an intense cognitive dissonance that I myself am unable to resolve.

Certainly, you yourself have linked me to it: it's in How to trust, part 3, at 14' and onwards.

And the fast track is to energetically endeavor to inform yourself; the low track is karma?

What about people who seem to have very weak desires altogether? For example people whose psychological/psychiatric/neurological diagnosis would fall in the realm of depression, dysthymia, anhedonia, or abulia?

Is there a way to increase the intensity of a person's desires?

 

hehe

I guess according to which pramanas one chooses, one will get different answers to that question.

All of the above is basically the pramana of logic ... and (IMHO) it acts as a good illustration of holding it as a pramana. There is no end to logical arguments and their counter arguments. There's often mention that the pride and joy of a jnani is their ability to disagree.

 

-=-

Without logic, how do you think you know the truth about anything?

 

Logic doesn't give you physical truths. It just lets you discuss the truth you already know in a valid and verifiable way as long as it is within scope.

Logic presupposes identity (A is A).

Observation and interaction with your environment is where physical truths are garnished.

 

Dirt speaks!

 

Logical arguments reach logical conclusions. It is illogical arguments that go on&on&on&on&on&on.

 

meh

hence the wonderful consensus that a room full of (un)like minds tends to provide

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If you disagree with this statement

All pigs are horses
all pigs can fly

therefore all horses can fly

you are calling upon different tools of inquiry aside from logic (at least as far as pramanas are concerned .... before you start getting all woolly about truth value)

 

“Originally Posted by StrangerInAStrangeLa

Without logic, how do you think you know the truth about anything? ”

“Originally Posted by StrangerInAStrangeLa

Without logic, how do you think you know the truth about anything? ”

 

If you disagree with the conclusion "all horses can fly" you can probably answer that one yourself .....

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-=-

You made the claim that we can know truth without logic. Answer the question or retract the claim or go away.

 

I can see that.

But what is the solution?

How does one switch from holding one pramana as authoritative to another one?

For example, I seem to be stuck in giving full authority to anumana. I am unhappy with how this makes things for me, though. Will I naturally grow out of this pramana and take to another one, if I am dissatisfied enough?

It certainly seems so. But two things: One, some people seem to grow out of this insistence on logic.
Secondly, some Buddhists hold that the analytical mind, in its proper application, devours itself.
There is the idea that if analytical discourse is conducted properly, it sooner or later comes to an end. However, it's not universally clear what exactly "conducted properly" means; usually, there is some idea about the right circumstances and the right persons, proper definitions of terms. But the idea remains that if logic is applied properly, arguments do come to an end.
What do you think of that?

What about those people who can find arguments against anything, but hwo are unhappy about it? Would they still qualify as jnanis?

"Less shrouding than others" - does that mean that some modes of intelligence are more in line with how the soul really is?

I think we are both well-aware of the wisdom and value that are traditionally seen as attributes of learned people.
At least where I come from, the popular view is to see professional philosophers or people with a high degree in philosophy as "having insight into how things really are".

It is hard, at least for me, to seriously consider that there could be anything wrong with the philosophers, that there could be anything false about them, what to speak of them having a false ego.
I was raised to sooner doubt myself than them ... and this is what I do.
I imagine that if I would seriously acknowledge that our Western intelligentsia are not all that intelligent, this would undermine everything I have learned so far, and I would end up in complete isolation.


So for example, I feel ashamed to even consider the possibility that God could be more than a mythological construct.
I am studying scriptures, chanting, doing some other practices, but all along, I feel I am in the wrong for doing so (and thereby comitting a number of offenses!). It is a very very strong feeling that I am wrong. That I am doing those religious things because I am a loser who can't handle the truth and such, and that normal people don't do such things as I and the religious do.

One thing that always struck me about Western intellectuals is that they often seem to emanate a negative vibe, I physcially cringe at the thought of JP Sartre, for example, what to speak of viewing his photo, or being in the physical presence of such a person. If you have ever seen and heard a dog that is both angry and scared - that is how I feel when faced with such people.
In the past, I have sometimes mentioned how negatively I feel around these people, and the reply I usually got was that I am a prude, retarded, stupid, don't know what the truly high and good is, and such. The people who have told me that or have expressed such views (e.g. that those who resent Sartre are just weaklings). They looked really confident in this (someone who wouldn't be perfectly certain that they are telling the truth would not be so confident, or would they?), so I concluded that what they are saying is apparently true, and I am indeed a weak, stupid, prudish retard, it's just that I am not yet fully convinced of this, not yet in proper knowledge of myself.

What about the fact that some (or many) of them think that this is simply not so?

And this is the way that a person can live in the Western world, but hold that it is completely possible that highly educated people still can have a low level of consciousness, be gross materialists?

I fail to see that.

For example, suppose Peter loves Mary. Mary has a tumor growing on her arm. Peter loves Mary (or so he claims). Peter does not have a high education. Peter wants to help Mary. Peter takes a knife and cuts the tumor off her arm, thereby making it spill into her bloodstream and infect her whole body.
We can't say that what Peter did was very intelligent, nor that it was loving, can we?

This is a simple and gross example, but we see such things on a daily basis, in one form of another when someone, lacking education and intelligent discernment makes an effort to solve a problem, but then makes it worse. Such as the hunger problem in Africa that became exacerbated by all those "goodwilled" efforts to "help".

You know, I wish you would have been there with me, when I had to deal with all those super-intelligent, educated people claiming they know what love is, and that I do not!

But leaving my direct personal grievances aside - I do think that a high education should - ideally - make one a better person on the whole, at least that was the ideal about 200 years ago, and my generation here was still taught so.

Interesting. But how come the opulences don't play any part in diminishing the false ego? I would have thought that they can be employed for such a purpose.

I know only of the one you linked me to, and this is the one I linked to.

I mean "weak desire" in the sense that a person feels bland, not really wanting anything, not really efforting for anything; investing only a mediocre effort into everything; getting bored quickly; that even though they wish they could really want something, they just seem to be unable to - instead, it's all just bland for them; that the only thing they want is to truly want something.

Although perhaps some of these people actually want impersonal liberation, and wanting impersonal liberation simply feels so bland. One can't really be enthusiastic about impersonal liberation!

In which mode or combination of modes is the desire for impersonal liberation?

What about intensifying spiritual desires, like the desire for perfection?

 

-=-

The Vedas obviously do not refute solipsism yet the bull goes on & on & on & on.

{Do not see the man behind the curtain, Grasshopper. He is not there.
STOP looking! He is not there!!!}

 

Riiight. And instead, I should just believe you, because you are a role-model of happiness and morality. :bawl:

 

Somehow I missed the goal of happiness in these "discussions". I probably can't help with that.
What makes you think I'm not a role model for morality?
Your quote from me is accurate. I can't make you believe it.