Difference between consciousness and the mind

[Sherab]

So does an unconscious being has a mind if there is no cognition whatsoever?

Yes, it continues as the ālayavijñāna, for example, in nirodha-samapatti.

Isn't it the case that for an untrained being, he is unconscious at the time of black near attainment? If yes, can an unconscious being at the time of black near attainment has luminosity as the object of his mind?

It is not that an untrained being is unconscious. He or she is simply not able to recognize the moment of luminosity when it occurs because it is very brief.

Since you held earlier that the two truths are only cognitions, then in the above two instances, there can be no two truths since there are no cognitions.

This implies that the two truths as cognitions is subjective. Therefore your positing of two truths as cognitions is implicitly in a framework that is not free from subject-object duality.

[Malcolm]

So does an unconscious being has a mind if there is no cognition whatsoever?

Yes, it continues as the ālayavijñāna, for example, in nirodha-samapatti.

Isn't it the case that for an untrained being, he is unconscious at the time of black near attainment? If yes, can an unconscious being at the time of black near attainment has luminosity as the object of his mind?

It is not that an untrained being is unconscious. He or she is simply not able to recognize the moment of luminosity when it occurs because it is very brief.

Since you held earlier that the two truths are only cognitions, then in the above two instances, there can be no two truths since there are no cognitions.

This implies that the two truths as cognitions is subjective. Therefore your positing of two truths as cognitions is implicitly in a framework that is not free from subject-object duality.

Well, the way Candrakirti defines the two truths is a little more precise: he states that the two truths are the object of either true or false cognitions respectively. In this case then, luminosity would be an ultimate truth. However, when luminosity is not correctly perceived, it becomes a relative truth; when it is correctly perceived, it is an ultimate truth.

The point however is that the truths are defined on the basis of veridical or false cognitions, so as a shorthand, I place the emphasis on the cognitions since they are the defining factor.

So yes, the two truths are conventionally subjective, they are not objective. The object of a veridical cognition, dharmatā śunyatā, is the ultimate truth. Nevertheless, the realization of ultimately truth comes when one's mind is truly synchronized with how things are (yatha bhutaṃ) and the apparent duality of subject and object vanishes since it is not there to begin with.

While one is confined to relative truth cognitions (including relative formulations of ultimate truths) one is necessarily confined to subject/object duality. There is no conceivable way to avoid this as long as we are using words and concepts.

[PadmaVonSamba]

No, that's like expecting to be able to move all boats as easily as the one you are sitting in.

But that's the problem...if you look ayt your boat (your body) there is no place (physically) where consciousness is "sitting in" it.
. . .

[Sherab]

.. There is no conceivable way to avoid this as long as we are using words and concepts.

So you agree that your holding of the two truths as merely cognitions is within a framework of subject-object duality. If so, then there can be no objectivity of such a model of the two truths because such truths will disappear for beings in the two instances I mentioned earlier. I don't think your quoting of Chandrakirti's take on the two truth support your view that the two truths are merely cognitions because it is equally applicable in the model that I have described. In the model that I described, the two truths do not disappear for beings that are unconscious because unlike your model, the model is not tied to the perspective of individual beings.

[Malcolm]

.. There is no conceivable way to avoid this as long as we are using words and concepts.

So you agree that your holding of the two truths as merely cognitions is within a framework of subject-object duality. If so, then there can be no objectivity of such a model of the two truths because such truths will disappear for beings in the two instances I mentioned earlier. I don't think your quoting of Chandrakirti's take on the two truth support your view that the two truths are merely cognitions because it is equally applicable in the model that I have described. In the model that I described, the two truths do not disappear for beings that are unconscious because unlike your model, the model is not tied to the perspective of individual beings.

First, I don't recall the model you described. This thread is complicated and our discussion has long since departed from the main body of the thread.

In the Madhyamaka model, the two truths are merely cognitions (veridical or false) of one and the same object.

[PadmaVonSamba]

You need the consciousness of the mother and father to create the conditions for the entry of a third consciousness. Which is more important for life, the consciousness of the mother and father or the consciousness of the third party?

Indeed, they have to be having sex. That requires that they are conscious beings, of course. One has to have all three things. In other words, parents engaging in sex (in the case of a human birth), and a gandharva that seeks rebirth.

Science has long proved that actual sexual union is not needed (in other words, a "test-tube baby").
Furthermore, cloning can also produce another being.
. . .

[Kaccāni]

Hm. Sitting here I think to myself: the ball moves through the air, or the air floats around the ball.

Why not just play pool?

Best wishes
Gwenn

[PadmaVonSamba]

I think if Buddhist practitioners drop their scholarly beliefs, and with the attitude of allowing non-fixation to develop, look at the natural world and accept naturalist explanations, then their practice will definitely bare fruit.

The scientific method is pure materialism and is utterly useless in anything other than materialistic inquiries. You are basically suggesting that Buddhists accept dualism as a basis for their practice. In essence you are suggesting Buddhists abandon the Dharma.

On the other hand, I think that rebirth (among other topics in the "beliefs" category) is sustainable from a materialist/scientific perspective. What is often lacking, however, are accurate definitions regarding what is actually going on.
Individual rebirth actually takes place constantly, many times a second. This problem isn't over whether it does or doesn't, but rather, that we see our experience, what we call "a single lifetime" enclosed by the bookends of our first and last breath...and that this interpretation of things ought to be readjusted. On the other hand, there has been a lot of faith-based 'fill in the missing pieces' theology accumulating over the past 2,500 years, some of it now easily disproved. Dharma is truth, whatever that truth may be. Buddha didn't invent truth...he taught it. Whether those teachings have been correctly passed down or not is a matter of belief. One may abandon much of the baggage of Buddism, but this doesn't mean one is abandoning truth. A lot of truth is material in nature.
. . .

[Malcolm]

You need the consciousness of the mother and father to create the conditions for the entry of a third consciousness. Which is more important for life, the consciousness of the mother and father or the consciousness of the third party?

Indeed, they have to be having sex. That requires that they are conscious beings, of course. One has to have all three things. In other words, parents engaging in sex (in the case of a human birth), and a gandharva that seeks rebirth.

Science has long proved that actual sexual union is not needed (in other words, a "test-tube baby").
Furthermore, cloning can also produce another being.
. . .

Yes, we would call these moisture and heat births...

[PadmaVonSamba]

Why not just play pool?

Yeah...they already thought of that.

[PadmaVonSamba]

You need the consciousness of the mother and father to create the conditions for the entry of a third consciousness. Which is more important for life, the consciousness of the mother and father or the consciousness of the third party?

Indeed, they have to be having sex. That requires that they are conscious beings, of course. One has to have all three things. In other words, parents engaging in sex (in the case of a human birth), and a gandharva that seeks rebirth.

Science has long proved that actual sexual union is not needed (in other words, a "test-tube baby").
Furthermore, cloning can also produce another being.
. . .

Yes, we would call these moisture and heat births...

But YOU said:

Indeed, they have to be having sex. ...parents engaging in sex (in the case of a human birth)

. . .

[Malcolm]

But YOU said:

Indeed, they have to be having sex. ...parents engaging in sex (in the case of a human birth)

. . .

In general, when we are talking about the normal mode of conception for human beings. Test tube babies, cloning, etc., do not really alter what Buddhism has to say about conception.

[Kaccāni]

Why not just play pool?

Yeah...they already thought of that.

Genius!!!!

[PadmaVonSamba]

But YOU said:

Indeed, they have to be having sex. ...parents engaging in sex (in the case of a human birth)

In general, when we are talking about the normal mode of conception for human beings. Test tube babies, cloning, etc., do not really alter what Buddhism has to say about conception.

Yes, it does. Totally. It shows that consciousness can just as easily plop itself down into (or as you say, "appropriate") a petri dish or a test tube just as easily as a woman's abdomen.
You have suggested all sorts of reasons why consciousness is specifically this or that, or can only go here or there or arise with one kind of thing or another.
It seems that consciousness thinks otherwise.
. . .

[Kaccāni]

I recently read a comparison between consciousness and a football team.
Where the single players that join it and leave it are the incarnations that do the work and form the spirit, seen as a whole there is a characteristic team spirit, that goes beyond single players participating in it.

I just don´t find the source right now.

Best wishes
Gwenn

[Vajraprajnakhadga]

Dharma is truth, whatever that truth may be.

Dharma is method not truth.

[Sherab]

First, I don't recall the model you described. This thread is complicated and our discussion has long since departed from the main body of the thread.

In the Madhyamaka model, the two truths are merely cognitions (veridical or false) of one and the same object.

The model I described is based in principle on the idea of emergence as an interpretation of dependent origination.

Emergence can be seen in our physical world. Because of emergence, the emergent can be seen to be non-existent from the point of view of that from which the emergent arises. For example, molecules arise from atoms. Think of a water molecule: wetness is a property at the level of the molecule; it is non-existent and not relevant at the level of the atom.

The dichotomy of the physical and the mental can be resolved by postulating that the physical and the mental as we know it, emerge from a more fundamental form of the mental.

The model is idealistic but not in the usual simple form in which idealism is commonly thought of. Because it is idealistic, it easily accommodates the mind only model but without the drawbacks.

The model can even accommodate the idea that emptiness does not apply at the most fundamental level, and resolve the conditioned/unconditioned dichotomy and the attainment/non-attainment dichotomy.

[Malcolm]

...

No, it does not change anything at all about what Buddhism has to say about conception since there are generally four modes of conception according to the Buddha.

[odysseus]

I´ll post this recent article about a scientific theory of consciousness, since the thread is touching upon this subject too.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 085105.htm

[Sherab]

I´ll post this recent article about a scientific theory of consciousness, since the thread is touching upon this subject too.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 085105.htm

Thanks. Happy to see some evidence supporting the theory of Penrose and Hameroff.