Food for Thought for both Theists and Atheists

Gisteron wrote: Russel's paradox... <snip> The universal set is impossible by its very own definition. <snip> oh, bugger...!

Really, you've burst my bubble...

Ok, act like I know nothing (really, I know nothing, maths & logic not a strong point)...

The Set of all Jedi would contain all Jedi and the superset too? No? Is that not allowed?

Really, a paradox too far? Quelle Surpise!?

As you quoted, I didn't say that a universal set is impossible, but that the universal set is. A set that contains all things is impossible because it would have to contain itself and - more mind-bogglingly - all of its subsets making it its own powerset that it, also by its own definition, must contain. Russels paradox only applies to the set that supposedly contains all sets that do not contain themselves which would make it both contain itself and not contain itself at the same time.

The set of all Jedi, on the other hand, is perfectly fine. When you say the set of all Jedi, what you really mean is the set of people who have the property of being a Jedi. That would be a genus-differentia definition where the genus (umbrella term, superset) is the set of all people and the differentia (particular criteria that distinguish elements of your set from other elements of the genus) being the property of being a Jedi. Ignoring for the sake of the explanation the fact that the property 'is a Jedi' isn't itself well defined, if we're talking strictly and only semantics, that is a perfectly fine set.

Feel free to message me if you have additional questions. Indeed, please do, because I am in the planning phase of a project where this kind of insight (that is the kind of questions people have about this sort of thing) may be rather helpful.

Gisteron wrote: People realize the existence of the superset and that is not "the point" at all. If it was, Watts and his camp would point out the existence of that superset rather than equate it with every subset of itself. That would serve the point and be less confusing. But confusion is their business, not communication.

People do realise it... but at the same time people don't...

There is a zen proverb about someone's perception of the world as they went through zen training: "At first, I saw mountains as mountains and rivers as rivers. Then, I saw mountains were not mountains and rivers were not rivers. Finally, I see mountains again as mountains, and rivers again as rivers."

In the Perfection of Wisdom work of the Mahayana Tradition of Buddhism (the work that was fundamental in the creation of the Zen tradition) there is a use of language that goes: A, not A, therefore A. The point being that the first and last A are the same, only one's perception about them has changed. Now obviously that doesn't meet the standards of western logical philosophy, but such ideas are never going to because western logical philosophy doesn't take into account the fact that there is consciousness creating it - Buddhism does.

The difference between the first and last A is the realisation of emptiness/hollowness. Emptiness is not a "thing" the word doesn't point to anything that could be touched, it is the label given to a quality of the universe - the quality that it is referring to is the fact that nothing in the universe has an abiding eternal self. What that means is that nothing in the universe is eternal, if something in the universe were eternal then when one tried to change it one wouldn't be able to. For example a table, if the table was eternal then one wouldn't be able to cut it in half, the fact that one can cut it in half means that it has no eternal self and can thus be changed. Emptiness however should not be mistaken for "lack of existence" saying that the table is "empty"doesn't mean that the table doesn't exist, otherwise when you tried to cut it in half your saw would just go straight through!

Now if something can be changed it must mean that it must be in a causal relationship with things around it. If I drop the table it falls and hits the floor and possibly breaks. One thing (me) can cause a change in the other thing (table). But nothing lacks an eternal abiding self. Everything is in a causal relationship with everything else, thus everything in the universe is interdependent on everything else - though perhaps separated by space and time.

Maya is the sanskrit word for Illusion, in ancient Vedic texts it refers to the forms created by the Gods. In Buddhism it has a very specific meaning, when the Buddhists use the word Maya they are saying that the entire world [universe] is an illusion. We are used to the binary thinking that makes something real and not real, but Maya should not be equated with "delusion", Maya is not seeing a giant pink elephant in the room that no one else can see. The world as an illusion (Maya) doesn't mean that nothing is real, it just means that things are not ultimately real, things don't have an eternally abiding and unchanging self.

If something can be changed and affected it must not be ultimately real and must therefore have emptiness. If something has emptiness then it must therefore have an interdependent relationship with everything else, it's existence is relative to everything else.

The problem is that people don't tend to see things like this. What they see is a table, just sitting there being table-like with its own existence, but what they don't realise is the fact that the table is there because it is used by people to work on, and was made with wood cut down from trees possibly in a different country, that were planted at the behest of an environmental initiative over 10 years ago by a former government try to forge a legacy in a time of economic crises etc... That example is just something I came up with, but it is illustrating the fact that people don't see things as having a relative existence with everything else, they just see a table.

People don't see the emptiness of eternal existence in things, which is why when those things leave or break or die people get upset or angry this causes suffering (dukkha). What Buddhism teaches is the impermanent emptiness of the universe, when one realises that the entire universe is impermanent then people stop trying to "grasp" at things which will eventually disappear, when people stop grasping they no longer suffer the absence of that thing.

That is why at the beginning of Zen training one sees mountains and rivers - we see them as being permanent, but then one realises that things don't have permanence - that the entire world is an illusion - so mountains and rivers don't really exist as separate permanent "things", but then at the end of Zen training one realises that there are mountains and rivers they really do exist - because we can go outside and see them - but one now has a different perception of their existence.

The way Language plays into this is because when we give names to things we automatically cut them off from everything else. We see where the name begins and where it stops, so we automatically think that this must be where something's existence begins and ends. Like the example I gave with the table. But if everything in the universe is interdependent with everything else then the names we give are just arbitrary boundaries at beginnings and ends we choose. We choose to say that this shape classifies as a table, but the table's existence depends on our existence to make it and others' existence to necessitate that we make it and the supernova's existence to create the atoms that make us up and so on...

That is how names confuse things. And again in Zen training one goes through the same process: First one uses names for everything, then one realises that names have an arbitrary existence and only exist relative to us, then one realises with a change in perception that names still apply to things but without the mistake of thinking that the name is defining its existence. A, not A, therefore A.

Does that make it any clearer?

Like I said... it was a nine minute video that was summing up entire books and a field of philosophical Buddhist dialogue... it left out a few details

I think a thorough reading of The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra would illuminate this conversation greatly. Has anyone here read it?

I love how two of the pictures of the automatic model have hand cranks.