Observer–Observed Symmetry and the Category Error of Non-Duality in Early Buddhist Thought

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#EarlyBuddhism #Nibbana #Nirodha #Phenomenology #ObserverObserved #Duality #NonDuality #PhilosophyOfMind #MetaAnalysis #Epistemology #Consciousness

I have something worth fleshing out and this caused some issues when I brought it up in debates.

I mean in talking about phenomenology, we talk about subjective reality as experience which is subjective and is also a "something" which we can analyze. When we talk about this "something" as a dichotomy of subject-object, it is a symmetrical framing of one's experience. Here the subjective experience or "the world" is a symmetry and therefor a "duality". In general, here we use categories modeling experience.

Now it happens that the idea of "non-duality" produces a category-error when trying to understand the Dhamma and in particular the relation between The Made and The Unmade elements ─ because here too there are two elements and to that extent a categorical "duality". From here come the ideas and practices of eg: not distinguishing between observer and the observed, denying duality, ideas of letting experience just be experience and not personal, and etc.

The category error is in that normally we think of subjective experience symmetrically and relatively, eg "good & bad", "tall & short", "beautiful & ugly", "black & white", and to this list we must add "symmetrical & asymmetrical" as terms describing subjective reality.

Now the idea of "non-duality" produces category-errors because it can be added to the list of like those "good & bad", "tall & short", "beautiful & ugly", "black & white", eg "I had two things and now I have only one", still describing subjective reality in analogical semantic categories. Whereas in the case of Made & Unmade we can't think in those categories and there has to occur abstraction on a higher level.

Basically, the issue is in that, generally speaking, the two: "duality" and "non-duality" are a categorical duality of their own. And duality can be re-framed as a symmetry because that is also a dual category framing of a system.

Essentially, in talking about "the other shore", the Unmade, we are talking about a category modeled as opposite of subjective reality. Essentially we have to model something as opposite of both "symmetry and asymetry", we need a "super-symmetry" as something categorically different "where neither symmetry nor asymmetry, no tall or short, no beautiful or ugly, neither duality nor non duality". And the category error is essentially modelling asymmetry instead of conceiving of a model with a super-symmetry to the other side of the the duality/symmetry as symmetry/asymmetry. And super here means it is another superior category and a different thing. So the opposite of symmetry here is not asymmetry, the opposite of symmetry ought to be modeled as a super-symmetry opposite both symmetry & asymetry, tall & short, good & bad, self and not self, etc. We are modelling meta-structural asymmetry as a super-relative element as the opposite of what is modeled as relativity.

By the same logic, the analytic opposite of "duality" is not a whatever "non-duality" but a "super-duality" and the opposite of "subjective existence" is not "non-existence" but "not-subjective existence" or "objective existence", or "objective reality" ─ it is the element which makes the cessation of perception & feeling possible.

Do you understand? It is paradoxical because we are pointing to a reality beyond reality doing the pointing, pointing to a reality which is neither of this nor that subjective frame of reference, known through extinguishment of either ─ we are modelling as a zero-variance stable state as a category other than any variant of subjective experience.

Now some more on General Semantics:

In trying to understand the world and our part in it, we are using our nervous system to understand the nervous system, so it is system which will not be able to verify its own super-symmetrical or super-relative framing and analysis of itself ─ it would have to cease for its analytic "proof" and "closure". And any temporal sequel would be another formation changing as it persist but with the superlative knowledge & vision of the truth beyond.

We are doing meta analysis, thinking about thinking, analyzing analysis, using words to explain words, using subjective existence to understand and even undo subjective existence and transcend subjective existence. The system can't be its own judge in good faith and has to be negated for revelation by negation as a stable state.

What are words? What is reality? How many words, or how much reality can ever do the questions justice? The only operation which can satisfy the analytic hunger is extinguishment of words and reality to see the proof for oneself.

Misc:

I am still sick and can't really optimize for training now, getting better though, will probably recover fine. There is a lot I could say about the things going on. I am sure that some of you know how fragile and volitile are the social and political constructs. In as far as I am concerned, a lot of people are betting against the sangha in matters of the Dhamma, and the real question is not who is more famous or popular, the power is in who has the truth on their side because those will actually produce the arahants. The arahants with superpowers can control all bases if they want.

I also want to note:

That super-symmetry logic is also used by Christopher Langan. In his work, which I studied a little, a long time ago, Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU). The framework is a self-referential "theory of everything" and attempts to formalize a reality beyond phenomenology, the theory treats reality as a self-configuring, self-processing language and system simulation. It heavily emphasizes dualities that resolve or transcend themselves at a higher (meta) level: syntactic vs. semantic, information vs. cognition, self vs. universe, etc.

> Langan uses ideas like conspansive duality, telic recursion, and structural symmetries where the observer/observed or model/reality distinctions collapse into a unified, self-contained system.

The logic employed is basically the same as I understand it, showing that the supra-symmetrical element is not rhetoric but a real possibility. That there is an analytic need for a category supra-symmetrically opposite of symmetry & asymmetry, symbol & meaning, duality and non-duality, self and not self", what is on the other side stands otherwise and apart, the other shore. Singleness opposite multiplicity of subjective variants.