Psychological vs. ontological facts

Allan Curry un824 at FREENET.VICTORIA.BC.CA
Fri May 23 12:34:59 CDT 1997


Namaste

In another post I mentioned that Gaudapada/Shankara use the perception of
the world as a proof that it is unreal. If reality is not perceived in some
fashion how can it be distinguished from the merely non-existent?  If it is
admitted that a jnani does perceive in *some* way, that they are Brahman ,
how can they then be certain that this knowledge is not merely another
*illusory* mode of brain/mind function?

I believe one of the responses to this criticism is that you can't have an
illusion without having a substratum. Well, why can't the experience of
non-duality be an illusion which is produced in the mind like other kinds
of psychological events, while the real ontological substratum is something
like a set of interacting quantum fields?  Must we assume that energy
itself is conscious when we assert that consciousness is the substratum of
the apparent universe or do we just ignore science completely?

-Allan Curry

P.S.
I noticed a book called "Maya in Physics" in the Motilal Barnarsidass
catalog. Has anyone read it? Would you recommend it?



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