Advaitin Negative Thinking

The advaitins are clever about negation. First of all there is the concept of superimposition or the mis-take i.e. you took something to be that which it was not. That such error is also the explanatory analogy for a theory of knowledge that slips between the Scylla and Charybdis of Realism and Idealism is a cunning lateral swerve. That requires deep explication but let it stand for now.

Next there is the unknown object, the ajnanatta satta. That an object can exist as an unknown object is an indication of its reality. It shelters under the great umbrella of being even if covered by a fog of ignorance. Mental existence is only for the time in which its object is present to the mind. It only exists by being known - it cannot be an unknown existent.

Finally there is the means of valid knowledge known as anupalabadhi or non-apprehension of existence. The book that was supposed to be on the table in the hall is not there. My friend was not in the cafe where I expected him to be. Please do not confuse this with the apprehension of non-existence which is impossible because that which does not exist cannot be apprehended.

Addendum: previously snakes and ropes

William James on Monism

I previously wrote:

It seems that Materialism and Idealism are now being described as monisms. So be it, as long as moving the terminological goal posts does not change the nature of the game. The plumping for one causes the other to be resorbed so to speak but not a quite vanished or banished twin. It's a position that always seem to be held 'against' the other one. Advaita is, in my view, a true monism in that there is always only a unity of being. However we do move from the 'natural' dualistic position of self and other towards it even if that 'movement' is purely notional.

Dipping in and out of the Hibbert Lectures of William James, reading them in no particular order, I finally came to the first lecture in which he proposes the characterisation of materialism and idealism as monisms . I still think that one is the dark brother of the other.

James writes of Monism:

For monism the world is no collection, but one great all-inclusive fact outside of which is nothing—nothing is its only alternative. When the monism is idealistic, this all-enveloping fact is represented as an absolute mind that makes the partial facts by thinking them, just as we make objects in a dream by dreaming them, or personages in a story by imagining them. To be, on this scheme, is, on the part of a finite thing, to be an object for the absolute; and on the part of the absolute it is to be the thinker of that assemblage of objects. If we use the word 'content' here, we see that the absolute and the world have an identical content. The absolute is nothing but the knowledge of those objects; the objects are nothing but what the absolute knows. The world and the all-thinker thus compenetrate and soak each other up without residuum. They are but two names for the same identical material, considered now from the subjective, and now from the objective point of view—gedanke and gedachtes, as we would say if we were Germans. We philosophers naturally form part of the material, on the monistic scheme. The absolute makes us by thinking us, and if we ourselves are enlightened enough to be believers in the absolute, one may then say that our philosophizing is one of the ways in which the absolute is conscious of itself. This is the full pantheistic scheme, the identitätsphilosophie, the immanence of God in his creation, a conception sublime from its tremendous unity. And yet that unity is incomplete, as closer examination will show.
The absolute and the world are one fact, I said, when materially considered. Our philosophy, for example, is not numerically distinct from the absolute's own knowledge of itself, not a duplicate and copy of it, it is part of that very knowledge, is numerically identical with as much of it as our thought covers. The absolute just is our philosophy, along with everything else that is known, in an act of knowing which (to use the words of my gifted absolutist colleague Royce) forms in its wholeness one luminously transparent conscious moment.

Norman Mailer Speaks

In the Temple of Asklepios as I lay on my bed awaiting a healing dream Norman Mailer came to me to explain everything:

“I thought her concession speech, too late for graciousness, just in time for contempt, was touchingly self-serving with her pleas to ‘little girls’. No the problem is not the ‘glass ceiling’ it’s the asbestos floor. He stood behind her, a sullen penitent, in his odd tie and good bad suit, he never forgets the country lawyer’s advice – don’t wear a suit before the jury that costs more than they earn in a month. No more will the plangent notes of the Sax sound through the White House or there be frolics in the sacred spaces. The golden nuggets of sophistry that Hillary delivered to bankers were fool’s gold that could buy a hollow laugh in the company store. Taking an early profit can be bad business, though no one ever went broke taking a profit. Ach the lost book deals, the lost book deals.!”

Au Contraire M.Ruskin said M.Bergson

Even granting the constant vigour of observation, and supposing the possession of such impossible knowledge, it needs but a moment's reflection to prove how incapable the memory is of retaining for any time the distinct image of the sources even of its most vivid impressions. What recollection have we of the sunsets which delighted us last year? We may know that they were magnificent, or glowing, but no distinct image of color or form is retained—nothing of whose degree (for the great difficulty with the memory is to retain, not facts, but degrees of fact) we could be so certain as to say of anything now presented to us, that it is like it. If we did say so, we should be wrong; for we may be quite certain that the energy of an impression fades from the memory, and becomes more and more indistinct every day; and thus we compare a faded and indistinct image with the decision and certainty of one present to the senses. How constantly do we affirm that the thunder-storm of last week was the most terrible one we ever saw in our lives, because we compare it, not with the thunder-storm of last year, but with the faded and feeble recollection of it.

As I ironically wrote in my story Bodhgaya ‘every sunset is the most beautiful sunset'.
Bodhgaya
M.Bergson of whom I had not heard at that time would say that all memory is eternally present and compounded in duration so nothing is lost.

Avidya - Upadesa Sahasri (6)

A key term that appears early and often is 'avidya' or 'ignorance as is the usual translation. What does it mean in the context of Advaita? Ignorance is something that is displayed and the central paradigm case of that is the taking of something to be that which it is not. In other words a mistake displays your ignorance. The real nature of what we thought we knew escaped us. Now one might say that this is a very narrow definition of 'ignorance' almost amounting to a technical use which is correct because of course there are 'unknown unknowns' which we are not in the slightest danger of confusing with anything else. They do not exist for us.

The analysis of 'avidya' follows through to the manner in which is displayed. This is known as 'adhyasa' or 'superimposition' and here we get to the classic example of the snake/rope. The attributes of a snake i.e. being coiled, are projected/superimposed on to the harmless rope.

On the Spectrum

There are people who know exactly what to do, which is generally what they should do. They have a plan, yes; but they do not consider how it might encroach on others. You could say they are oughtistic.

Materialism and Idealism as Monisms

It seems that Materialism and Idealism are now being described as monisms. So be it, as long as moving the terminalogical goal posts does not change the nature of the game. The plumping for one causes the other to be resorbed so to speak but not a quite vanished or banished twin. It's a position that always seem to be held 'against' the other one. Advaita is, in my view, a true monism in that there is always only a unity of being. However we do move from the 'natural' dualistic position of self and other towards it even if that 'movement' is purely notional.