zurew

Thats good - dont take a position on it unless you have more clarity on it and much better understanding about it - lets just say there is a lot that you can learn about many different kind of logics and on meta logic as well. The lay folk understanding and intuition on logic is bad and without reading up on it you will make bad inferences about it (and this includes the law of identity as well, and includes what kind of implications would come from the law of identity being false) All I can confidently say is that the law of non-contradiction is one law that not all academic philosophers who specialize in logic accept - some of them suggest that there are some true contradictions ( for example this usually includes the liars paradox)

Generally speaking, nothing. You dont need to be able to explicitly define the meaning behind terms in a 100% precise way in order for classical or propositional logic to "work". As long as the sense behind letters or terms is used in a consistent way (there is no equivocation), and as long as your statement is truth apt (your statement can be true or false), there shouldnt be an issue. In fact this is one reason why logic is useful - because you can use it for abstract operations, where you can replace letters or phrases (in this case "a") with anything and it will still work. For example you can derive contradictions from someone's worldview without even knowing the meaning behind their words (again assuming that their statements are truth apt and also assuming that they arent engaging in equivocation) As a sidenote - I would be careful with attaching special metaphysics behind any given logic. The term "logic" is ambiguous, because there are many different kind of logics. You dont need to take any stance on the ontology of any given logic in order for that logic to be useful. Im personally inclined to say that statements like "logic exists" is meaningless and isnt even truth apt.

@UnbornTao You are not engaging and not answering questions, you are just running the zen script as a default. I dont disagree with your main points about enlightenment and about the importance of direct consciousness when it comes to enlightenment - that never was the point. I also agree that when it comes to questions that enlightement can answer, we should do enlightement work and we shouldn't philosophize about those questions. But the question is this: Are there questions about metaphysics that cant be answered using direct consciousness? If the answer is yes, and you want to have an answer and want to investigate those questions (questions that would be in that set) - then you will need to use a different epistemic approach. If you dont care about questions that might be in that set - cool, but others might be. Now to answer the "what kind of questions?" - I can name a few, but we should be able to entertain this without naming any particular question (without naming any particular member of the set), we could just talk about the properties of the set that contains all questions that have the necessary attributes (attribute like "cant be investigated/answered using direct consciousness"). For example: Maybe questions regarding solipsism are in that set. So if questions regarding solipsism cant be answered through direct consciousness, then giving the reply of "just have awakenings bro or have more enlightenments bro" , that isnt at all responsive to the issue at hand and completely misses the point (unless you actually know that enlightement can give one an answer about solipsism and you dont just assume that enlightement can answer questions about solipsism). If you categorize questions about solipsism as relative, thats fine, but I would still categorize those questions under metaphysics - but regardless how you categorize these questions - the point is that if these questions cant be answered by direct consciousness, awakening, enlightenment, then you need a different epistemic approach to try to investigate these questions. The other point is this: Do you actually know what questions enlightenement can answer in principle or do you just have a basic unjustified assumption that tells you that enlightenment can answer all questions about metaphysics? Can you recognize how in this case appealing to enlightement doesnt give an answer to this question? By having enlightements at best you will only recognize some of the questions that can be answered by direct consciousness, but you never establish that the set I described is empty. Even if you had a 100 enlightements (where each enlightement answered you 1 question about metaphysics), that doesnt establish that the set is empty, that only shows that enlightenement can answer 100 questions about metaphysics. For you to hold the position that enlightement can categorically answer all questions about metaphysics, you would need to make an inference (you would infer from enlightement being able to answer some questions about metaphysics, to enlightement being able to answer all questions about metaphyics) - and the point we start to talk about inferences, you are suddenly subject to be wrong and you are in philosophy territory that you categorize as "speculation and useless".

I didnt contest that. Sure under how you use 'worthless' and 'speculation' maybe, but again you didnt respond to any of the problems I raised, where philosophy and more specifically abductive reasoning shines. The point never was that one can access absolute truth through intellectual means, one point was that there are metaphysical questions that seemingly cant be answered just by the appeal to the absolute truth. For example "everything is mind" - that proposition is compatible with both solipsism and Kastrup's idealism, so in this specific case an appeal to absolute truth wouldnt be useful for finding out which metaphysical framework is true - which is why I labeled this as an underdetermination issue. So the question is - what are you going to do about metaphysical questions that are in principle cant be answered by direct experience, falsification, testing? - you can ignore them and label them as "speculation" or anything you want, but those questions will still remain unanswered, and sure if you dont want to investigate those questions through other epistemic means (something other than direct consciousness), thats fine, but you grouping all those other epistemic approaches together under 'speculation' is still myopic and lacks nuance imo.

@UnbornTao I dont see how that engages with what I said. Whats the response to the issue about truths that are untestable and unfalsifiable in principle? Whats the reponse to the issue about enlightenment,absolute truth being compatible with multiple different kind of metaphysical frameworks?

Can you elaborate more on what you mean by meta-metaphysical?

If your definition of usefulness is "something that increases consciousness" - then yeah they are useless, but I dont share that kind of definition (I use the term 'useful' in a much broader way). I also think thats a very reductive view of things and you miss a whole lot of nuance. Applying your approach to philosophy of science would be like saying that using the scientific process is as effective in finding out relative facts about the world as dancing around the fire 5 times , since they are all just "guesses". The problem is this: If you grant that there are truths that are in principle untestable and unfalsifiable, then you need to use an epistemic process which is not about testing or falsification. So the answer to your question of "what are they useful for beyond those things?" - they are useful for finding out truths that cant be discerned in principle through falsification or testing. The relevant question that needs to be answered is this: Why should anyone think that having enlightenment/awakening experiences is only possible under one specific metaphysics? The reason why the answer to that question would be super relevant, is because as long as they are possible under multiple different kind of metaphysics , there will be an underdetermination issue and appealing to enlightenment to settle questions about metaphysics wont be sufficient. For example - can you have the same enlightenment experience if solipsism is true just like the same way if Bernardo Kastrup's idealism is true? Because if the answer is yes, then obviously to settle which one is true cant be settled by merely appealing to enlightenment.

All Zen takes place under a set of presupposed metaphysical assumptions. You never escape these philosophical debates - hence they are very far from being worthless. The ability to become directly conscious of X already presupposes a frame that makes ' becoming directly conscious ' possible. And as long as there are multiple frames that are compatible with providing that possibility, you will have an underdetermination problem that you won't "solve" without doing philosophy and these seemingly worthless conceptual battles.

What does that even mean that you confirmed that? Even if you had an awakening about solipsism, the inference you made there still doesnt make any sense. Why rank solipsism higher rather than lower? Also once you affirm these two propositions in conjuction (like Leo): 1) There are levels of awakening 2) and also affirm that higher levels can completely recontextualize (by using the word recontextualize I am being extremely generous, because given how Leo talked about the levels, a more suitable word would be 'undermine') everything that you knew about awakenings (including the idea which awakening is the highest) , yourself, the world etc. Then the only reasonable position that you (and Leo) should be left with is agnosticism, given that all your knowledge can be completely undermined, and given the assumption that you are right about those two propositions.

I never contested that solipsism is possible, but thats not interesting, because a lot of other views are logically possible as well

So it is logically possible that solipsism is false, right?

They dont want to make an abductive argument (inference to the best explanation - where you compare views based on virtues), they try to make the claim that only solipsism is logically possible which is categorically a different approach - but when pressed on it they can never substantiate that claim.

God can make it so that gravity is 6 feet tall , infrared, and smells like roses, because he is not bound by anything. He can also make the square root of red more tasty and a little bit more salty.

Once the move of equivocation is recognized in Leo's work , you start to see it everywhere and you realize how much it lacks substance and how uninteresting and unimpressive it is. "Ohh, you made a 1000 blog posts trying to critique X, where you use X in a completely differently sense how people you want to critique use it? Cool, buts its completely unresponsive to their position." There is a difference between talking about possibilities vs making meaningful statements. Its not about God not having the ability to do X, its about X being meaningful. If I were to object to you saying "God is not bound by anything, therefore God can tell you the square root of red", the objection wouldn't be about pointing out that God lacks some ability, but about you being conceptually confused and your statement being incoherent and not communicating anything meaningful. So its not about your statement being false (because only meaningful statements can have the property of being false) - its about your statement not even being capable to be true or false.

Good stuff, great job again! Yeah facts dont speak for themselves and we only recognize a small subset of implications that comes from facts. There is our relevance "bubble" and there is a much larger set that contains all implications that comes from facts. Its not just that we only care about certain facts, but its also about how we relate to those facts . And this is why rhetoric is important, because everything is about the packaging of facts and about spelling out how it relates to you and to the things you care about. And when it comes to underdetermination and when it comes to choosing one hypothesis over another or when it comes to giving weight (significance) to certain interpretations (just as you said) those are all related to things that are not just about facts. Reasonableness and rationality are also qualities that are related to packaging and storytelling and interpretation. Its also very obvious to me that when people usually say "thats logical", they dont invoke validity in a strict prop logic sense (where validity means the conclusion necessarily follows), but they relate it to a particular interpretation (where they choose and focus on a specific implication from all possible implications, one that is aligned with their background beliefs and lived experience the most). Just as a side note, this is one reason why AI is interesting and problematic right now, because it can show us and make certain interpretations much more salient, ones that are very unintuitive to us, and one reason why they are unintuitive, is because (I take it that) our intuitiveness is also directly related to the things you wrote extensively about. This is also one of the main reason why alignment is an issue (not because the AI's interpretation is logically inconsistent with achiveing our goals - the goal of getting a coffee is consistent with running over a 1000 people and getting it that way), but its hard to narrow down the set that contains all possible interpretations that are all compatible with the execution of our goals and appealing to facts and logic (in a strict sense) wont be enough for that.

No, because doing and studying physics with a materialist metaphyiscs in mind, vs doing and studying physics with a non-materialist metaphysics in mind changes a lot when it comes to what kind of inferences and implications one draws from studying the patterns.

And you can be wrong about the laws of the dream and the limitations of the current dream. What do you appeal to when you reject the new age claims? Because most of you don't use any sophisticated kind of reasoning to argue about the relative, most of you try to appeal to the absolute and use that to reject new age stuff that are about the relative (which is a move that doesn't make any sense). Whats very peculiar and whats being questioned by Carl (as I understand it ), is that some of you have curiously adopted a materialist frame for the relative. Interestingly for some kind of particular reason, the laws of this particular dream supposed to be 100% aligned with what a materialist would claim. What kind of tools and thinking and reasoning do you use to check what kind of dream you are in right now and what kind of properties this particular dream has? - because as much as you guys like to talk about the limitations of science - when you try to trash physicalists on a philosophical level - all those criticisms are applied to you when you make a claim about the relative, because you use and rely on that scientific frame.

Thats a claim that you can be wrong about (reality can be a dream and your claim about how it unfolds or how it suppsoe to unfold can be wrong), but even if you are right about that particular thing thats compatible with all kinds of new age shit that you currently reject. Im also sure that none of you have any good response to the problem of induction - so even if you are right about the inherent limitations of the laws of physics from that wouldn't follow that 1 second from now , the laws wont change.

But you can be wrong about those rules and laws. You brush off certain claims about the content and the possibilities of the dream based on what kind of reasoning? Based on reasoning that is subject to be wrong.

"focus on becoming directly conscious of the answer and stop wasting time using other methods(like thinking) where the generated answer to a given question isn't guaranteed to be correct/right" I still think that this become directly conscious of x talk is incoherent when it comes to relative matters. I also think that you downplay other ways to investigate reality and you categorize those as just "speculation".

The point isnt that he would necessarily choose those extreme and violent things, the point is to challenge the idea that it would be just as meaningful/meaningless to him. If the idea is that one can have complete power over what meaning one attaches to things, then it shouldnt be an issue to be a rapist or a serial killer ,because you can choose how things strikes you and or you can have a mindstate completely detached from what you do and what happens to you. So if you have two people: one is enlightened and in presence mode and the other isn't enlightened and both are forced to rape people every day and to eat shit every day - there is a high chance that one would be miserable and highly suicidal, but what about the monk? Could the monk maintain a blank mindstate and would the monk (since he is completely present) find the whole thing just as blank and devoid of meaning as if he would solve world hunger? Or would the monk have the ability to find solving world hunger to be horrible and atrocious and being a rapist to be highly meaningful and positive? And im not talking about a situation where your mind completely detaches from the situation as a defense mechanism so that you don't need to live through the horrible things that you go through or you don't need to remember the horrible things you did - im talking about being completely present and living through all moments.

For example could that Zen monk find being a rapist or a serial killer just as meaningful as being a monk or a teacher?

This is where I am skeptical, because it doesnt necessarily follow. Going back to my point - just because there isn't anything that is objectively beautiful , from that doesnt follow that you can freely choose or change what you find beautiful. Or just because gastronomical realism isnt true (there arent facts about what is delicious, its based on the subject's judgement), from that doesn't follow that you can freely choose and change what you find tasteful and what you find disgusting. same with morality, just because there arent any moral facts, from that doesnt follow that you can change your moral intuitions (what you find morally reprehensible and what you don't) The same goes for meaningfulness - just because we go with the antirealist position from that doesnt follow that you can have power over what you find meaningful and how meaningful it is for you. Some people are okay with that kind of life, others arent - and im not sure whether everyone can be okay with it or not (again going back to my issue with the changing of preferences and intuitions) But maybe in a truly egoless state what you are saying is true, because there arent any preferences and moral intuitions about anything (maybe) - but im agnostic on that for now . And the reason why im agnostic is because in egoless or kind of egoless states I tend to be calm (and other practicioners who are much better at meditation than me tend to say the same) and its not a blank state (its calmness and spaciousness) - so 1) im not sure whether some of the things we are talking about are depended on our egos and its just purely survival related or its something much more deeper that goes beyond that 2) Even If it goes beyond surivival there can be still facts about consciousness (just like the calmness and spaciousness that comes from the egoless states - and there you cant just choose that you want to be angry in those egoless states - there seem to be certain qualities that comes with states. So basically regardless if its survival or not survival related - the question about what you can change related to these things seem to be open (for me)

I have an antirealist position on aesthetics,morality ,meaning and I think the same line of thought applies to all of them. Even though there arent any objectively true/correct answers to what is beautiful, what is moral, whats the meaning of life - our relationship to these questions isn't arbitrary - there are patterns and facts about our meaning-making, about what we find ugly and beautiful and about why we have the moral intuitions that we have.