Question on method of arriving at conclusions

[Sankar Jayanarayanan]

Suresh wrote:

> Vidyasankar Sundaresan <vidya at CCO.CALTECH.EDU> wrote :
>
> > Suresh wrote:
> > >   The very fact that someone takes support of the fact that something
 cannot
> >  be
> > > disproved to stake claim for its truth means that it cannot be proved
>  either.
> > > So whatever is to be passed of as truth based on the above criterion can
> > > neither pe proved nor disproved.
> >
> > This is correct. With respect to the criterion of truth, Sankara maintains
> > that non-contradictability, not just non-contradictedness should be the
> > criterion of absolute truth. Non-contradictability means that the truth can
> > never be denied by anyone at any time, which holds for the Self. "Non-
> > contradicted"ness only means that it has not been contradicted hitherto,
 which
> > does not mean that some argument cannot be given to contradict it in the
>  future.
> > Contradiction here is obviously more than a statement that contradicts a
> > previous one: it assumes that the other statement has been proved to be
 true,
> > which necessarily means that the original statement must be false.
>
>   Only Brahman seems to satisfy the requirements you have given above. I was
>  arguing
>   from the standpoint of logic alone.
>

Actually, no. I mean: even mathematical truths like "2+2=4" cannot be denied by
anyone at any time, not necessarily the Self alone. As Kant said (paraphrased),
"We may conceive of a world in which fire does not burn wood, but we cannot
conceive of anything ever contradicting the fact that two and two make four."

Here's my understanding of "truth" in Western Philosophy (the best thing to do
is to verify all that I say by checking up the facts from a book on Western
philosophy; since this is not a forum to hold such discussions, I may say
something totally wrong and mislead others):

There are two divisions of "judgments" (or "true statements"):

Analytic and synthetic:

An analytic judgment is one which leads to a logical absurdity when
contradicted. The judgment is such that by virtue of the very definitions of the
words in the judgment, the judgment is true. e.g."A father is a man".

A Synthetic judgment is one whose negation is not necessarily logically absurd.
e.g. "Copper conducts electricity". (the negation, "copper does not conduct
electricity" cannot be said to be untrue just because of the terms involved).

apriori and aposteriori judgments:

apriori : Which is true before sensory experience. e.g. "2+2=4"

aposteriori: Which is found to be true only AFTER sensory experience.
e.g. "Fire is hot".

It is OBVIOUS (at least, that's according to the Western Philosophers) that
all analytic judgments are apriori. i.e, analytic judgments constitute a subset
of apriori judgments.

Hume thought that the reverse also held, i.e, all apriori judgments are
analytic.

Kant differed from Hume in that Kant maintained that all judgments of
mathematics, i.e, judgments like "2+2=4" are apriori, but not analytic:
in fact, Kant goes so far as to say that "All mathematical judgments are
synthetic and apriori."

I'm not so sure about this, but here goes (again, please take this with
as much salt as your health permits :-) ) :

Kant says that Geometrical judgments like "The shortest path between two
points is a straight line" is apriori, since this is verified to be true prior
to sensory experience. For this reason, the judgment "space exists" is apriori:
it is known to be true before we undergo sensory experience. Kant gives an
ingenious argument for this:

What our senses give to us is merely "sensations", which are not themselves
potent to give us "knowledge". The mind moulds these "sensations" to create
"perception". Space as such is NEVER experienced: the mind CREATES THE NOTION
OF SPACE and "arranges" the sensations to give the perception called "object
situated in space". So knowledge of space is synthetic and apriori.

According to Kant, space and time are "modes" of perception, since they are
not objects of experience (no sense organ experiences space) but objects
themselves cannot be conceived of without space.

A good book to consult is "The great Philosophers" by Karl Jaspers.

IAN wrote:

> IAN: The traditional non-contradictional logic counter to your analysis
> is that "self" *is* contradicted by all the universe that is defined as
> "not-self." I can deny that this chair is part of myself, thus the
> consciousness that I am, which is the measure of "the Self," is
> not universally present. How would you answer this counter?

The self itself is not known. If the self is truly known, the "division" of
self and not-self is not experienced. As Ramakrishna says,"A Vedantin
discriminates saying `neti, neti'; but after realization, it is found that all
that has been negated is in reality Brahman."

Nagarjuna too says,"The Buddhas have...not referred to anything called the
self or the non-self."

Maybe you could say that "neti, neti" is "before realization" and "iti, iti"
is "after realization". :-)

> As the "empty" space around a particle is a part of that particle, it
> follows directly that every particle is a part of every other particle
> unto infinity, connected via their common part: space.

The statement that "every particle is a part of every other particle" is far
far away from advaita. In fact, it's so close to Buddhism which maintains that
"so far as no other evidence is found, every object is dependent on every other
object. Since emperical evidence suggests that there is no object that is
non-causal and non-conditioned by other objects, it follows that (so long as
there is no other evidence) there is nothing that exists INDEPENDENTLY."

Nagarjuna even says,"To the person who can teach dependent arising... I bow
my head."

> Every particle is
> thus the same thing, the same unified identity the same "Self." If I am
> my body, then I am the whole universe. This 100% refined nonduality.

The flaw is in thinking that "every particle...", which suggests that "there are
many particles". There is no "many", but only ONE Self. Advaita denies that
there is _anything_ apart from the self.

-Kartik