[Advaita-l] creation ex nihilo

[NARAYANA MURTHY]

> Namaste
> 
> Let me illustrate this. Suppose you buy your first DVD recorder and
> you
> find yourself not knowing how to operate it. What would you
> attribute
> the ignorance to? Would it be something in your head that obstructs
> you
> from knowing how to operate it or is it the absence of the
> 'operating
> knowledge' of the DVD Recorder? The ABSENCE of the 'operating
> knowledge'
> caused an EXISTENT effect of not knowing what buttons to press.

In case you are unaware of what Causation is:

CAUSATION MUST INVOLVE CHANGE.

In your above example, what is the CHANGE involved? Let us see:

Ignorance (Absence of Knowledge) -> Ignorance (Absence of Knowledge)

Note that there is NO CHANGE INVOLVED IN YOUR EXAMPLE. HENCE THERE IS
NO CAUSATION.

Again, note that Anand's example is different from yours, principally
because he took into account Ignorance as not merely Absence of
Knowledge, but PRESENCE OF ERRONEOUS COGNITION. In other words,
Ignorance can come in two forms:

Ignorance = Absence of Knowledge (CANNOT BE A CAUSE)

Ignorance = Presence of Erroneous Cognition (CAN BE A CAUSE)

It is the second kind of Ignorance that can be considered a CAUSE for
Perception of the World.

Regards,
Kartik

  Dear kartik
   
  pranam. Although shri Anand addressed the issue from a different perspective, the issue of a non existent cause resulting in an existent effect was not addressed in that reply.  The event -a real life experience -could not be termed a fallacy. It remained a riddle and your above reply was helpful to break the same.
  The error then is in the analogy. The error is in connecting two events under cause effect relationship which requires a change which was not there in the analogy.
   
  In this connection, I have another doubt.
   
  on occurence of two events - where the occurence of first event results in the occurence of the second event, could the first event be called as anything other than cause? - say a *pretext*
   
  Regards
  N.Murthy
   
   
   

       
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