Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
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Viscid
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by Viscid »

Moth wrote:Wow, thanks for the reference to Bodhesako's essay, it's amazing. Here's a link for others who are interested.
http://pathpress.wordpress.com/bodhesako/change/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Brilliant essay. Bodhesako was so cool. 8-)
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by Moth »

Sam Vega wrote:My perplexity is to do with a slightly different issue - that of making sense of something being the condition of its own conditions, especially as regards a causal process - but the same general principles apply.
That is the whole idea. Samsara is an infinite loop, and in order to create an infinite loop we must either self-reference, or we must create a circular dependency, which is also a type of suspended self-reference. This is called recursion. For example, if I were to define a function:

function demonstrateRecursion(){
print "This is an example of recursion";
demonstrationRecursion();
}

This function would keep calling itself and the output would be:
This is an example of recursion
This is an example of recursion
This is an example of recursion
...(onwards into infinity)

Another example is the liar's paradox, which is stated as such: "This statement is not true". If it is true then its not true, which means that it is true, which means that it's not true, etc.

Another is a fractal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. A fractal is a mathematical image composed entirely of repetitions of itself at different scales onwards into infinity. This image is caused by plotting certain recursive equations (i.e the Mandlebrot set: z^n+1 = z^n^2 + c).

In the Dhamma, namarupa and vinyana create a circular dependency.
DN15 wrote:"'From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form.' Thus it has been said. And this is the way to understand how from consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form. If consciousness were not to descend into the mother's womb, would name-&-form take shape in the womb?"

"No, lord."

"If, after descending into the womb, consciousness were to depart, would name-&-form be produced for this world?"

"No, lord."

"If the consciousness of the young boy or girl were to be cut off, would name-&-form ripen, grow, and reach maturity?"

"No, lord."

"Thus this is a cause, this is a reason, this is an origination, this is a requisite condition for name-&-form, i.e., consciousness.

"From name-&-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness.' Thus it has been said. And this is the way to understand how from name-&-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness. If consciousness were not to gain a foothold in name-&-form, would a coming-into-play of the origination of birth, aging, death, and stress in the future be discerned?"

"No, lord."

"Thus this is a cause, this is a reason, this is an origination, this is a requisite condition for consciousness, i.e., name-&-form.

"This is the extent to which there is birth, aging, death, passing away, and re-arising. This is the extent to which there are means of designation, expression, and delineation. This is the extent to which the dimension of discernment extends, the extent to which the cycle revolves for the manifesting [discernibility] of this world — i.e., name-&-form together with consciousness."
SN - 22 wrote: "And what is name-&-form? Feeling, perception, intention, contact, & attention: This is called name. The four great elements and the form dependent on the four great elements: This is called form. This name & this form are called name-&-form.

"And what is consciousness? These six are classes of consciousness: eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, intellect-consciousness. This is called consciousness.
Wikipedia - Skhanda wrote: -The concurrence of an object, its sense organ and the related consciousness (viññāṇa • vijñāṇa) is called "contact" (phassa • sparśa).[22][23][24]
-From the contact of form and consciousness arise the three mental (nāma) aggregates of feeling (vedanā), perception (saññā• saṃjñā) and mental formation (saṅkhāra • saṃskāra).[25][26]
-The mental aggregates can then in turn give rise to additional consciousness that leads to the arising of additional mental aggregates.[27]

In this scheme, form, the mental aggregates,[28] and consciousness are mutually dependent.[29]
This continual self-referencing perpetuates the whole process into infinity.
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by Sam Vara »

Thanks for this, Moth, which I am struggling to understand.
That is the whole idea. Samsara is an infinite loop
Is it? How could we know this?
This is called recursion. For example, if I were to define a function:

function demonstrateRecursion(){
print "This is an example of recursion";
demonstrationRecursion();
}

This function would keep calling itself and the output would be:
This is an example of recursion
This is an example of recursion
This is an example of recursion
...(onwards into infinity)
Sorry, you've lost me here.
This continual self-referencing perpetuates the whole process into infinity.
I can take this on faith if needs be, but it does seem to be a portentous way of saying what is analytically true about consciousness, i.e. that it requires subject and object in all its instantiations.
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by Sarva »

Hi Moth
Just a small observation, I believe the consciousness spoken of in DN15 is a different consciousness spoken of in the last two quotation.
My understanding is there is no first cause in Buddhism, e.g. the chicken and the egg arise together.

Hope it helps with your research. :)
“Both formerly & now, it is only stress that I describe, and the cessation of stress.” — SN 22:86
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by Moth »

Sam Vega wrote:I can take this on faith if needs be
Well, don't take my words on Faith, I am just making correlations, speculations, etc. Buddha says Samsara is a cycle of birth and death with no discernible beginning or end, so I made the correlation of indefinite cycle --> infinite loop, just for my own understanding. The Buddha never said that explicitly.
Sam Vega wrote:it does seem to be a portentous way of saying what is analytically true about consciousness, i.e. that it requires subject and object in all its instantiations.
This reminds me of Sartre's theory in Being and Nothingness. By nature of the subject-object duality, subject and object must always be separate. The subject can only perceive objects, it is incapable of perceiving itself because it is always the one perceiving. In order to perceive something, that thing must be an object, and thus it cannot be the subject. However, we are constantly attempting to do just this, to self-reference. We constantly think, I am [insert form, feeling, perception, or volition] thinking that the [object] is the subject, or belongs to the subject. Everything the subject attempts to identify itself with, by principle of being conscious of it, it cannot be. The subject is always a negative space of sorts. If I am conscious of a feeling I cannot be that feeling, if I am conscious of a perception, I cannot be that perception, etc. If I am conscious of the thought "I am" I cannot be that thought, nor can that thought ever correctly reference me.

Thus the subject cannot be associated with anything, because anything you associate it with it cannot be. I am what I am not and I am not what I am. This is further complicated by the Buddha's teaching that consciousness arises from contact between, for example eye and form. This makes me think that it is incorrect to say that the subject is conscious of an object, rather the consciousness is an awareness of the contact between two objects, and there is no subject at all. GAH.
Last edited by Moth on Sun Apr 15, 2012 6:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by Sarva »

Moth wrote:--cut for space-- Everything the subject attempts to identify itself with, by principle of being conscious of it, it cannot be. The subject is always a negative space of sorts. If I am conscious of a feeling I cannot be that feeling, if I am conscious of a perception, I cannot be that perception, etc. If I am conscious of the thought "I am" I cannot be that thought, nor can that thought ever correctly reference me.

Thus the subject cannot be associated with anything, because anything you associate it with it cannot be. I am what I am not and I am not what I am. This is further complicated by the Buddha's teaching that consciousness arises from contact between, for example eye and form. This makes me think that it is incorrect to say that the subject is conscious of an object, rather the consciousness is an awareness of the contact between two objects, and there is no subject at all. GAH.
Hello Moth and Sam
This is interesting and correct in my understanding also. Because we are not what we observe so we have no reason to claim it as 'mine'. Consequently we do not need to crave or cling to any sensed phenomena (thought, feeling, sense contact etc). What is more, as you point out Moth, there is no self or permanent subject according to Buddhism (anatta) so there is no 'owner' of any sensed phenomena. Again this implies even when we are angry or gripped by passion, there is no real owner and we have an opportunity to be "free" from its grip, in a sense. This is often not an option we see, instead we believe we are what we feel.

The issue is that through ignorance we can believe and create (or give birth to) a sense of self. If we create a sense of self it can lead to a feeling that we are obliged to act to define our self or protect our self image. This leads to dukkha (frustration) as there is no real self which we can protect or define and it must eventually end (die) or under go change. For example, believing I am a rich business man, having made lots of money in real estate, I have a self image. Propelled by this sense of self I expect to be treated with respect by my employees, however when I am not treated with respect, I become hostile or depressed (dukkha). I may maintain that I am depressed because that is how I am. The truth is that there is no real 'rich business man self', the idea or concept has be born through my ignorance of taking myself to be defined by my situation. There is no self which 'owns' depression. All situations or phenomena are arising interdependently i.e. objectively and hence there is not a subject or a self (as you pointed out) only arising and falling (anicca).

This is my own understanding, subject to improvement, but I hope it adds to the topic.

Metta

PS: Thanks Sam for clarifying your question was different than my own above. :smile:
“Both formerly & now, it is only stress that I describe, and the cessation of stress.” — SN 22:86
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by PadmaPhala »

Moth wrote:I am currently reading Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter and I am finding the parallels to Buddhism very striking. While I haven't made it to this section of the book yet (still learning about formal systems), I am aware that it's ultimate purpose is to demonstrate how the capacity for self-reference can arise out of a composition of things which cannot self-reference. I believe this to be a parallel to the arising of sakkaya-ditthi. Again, I haven't read about how this works yet, but I know it has to do with recursive loops.
(...)
thanks for the title of a book (years/months from now)
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by PadmaPhala »

Moth wrote:--cut for space-- Everything the subject attempts to identify itself with, by principle of being conscious of it, it cannot be. The subject is always a negative space of sorts. If I am conscious of a feeling I cannot be that feeling, if I am conscious of a perception, I cannot be that perception, etc. If I am conscious of the thought "I am" I cannot be that thought, nor can that thought ever correctly reference me.
(...)
true. however, remember that anatta means that the vedic concept of atmān is flawed.

the buddhadharma isn't by any means, nihilistic.

you can not be that perception but you own that perception.
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by pulga »

Moth wrote: Everything the subject attempts to identify itself with, by principle of being conscious of it, it cannot be. The subject is always a negative space of sorts. If I am conscious of a feeling I cannot be that feeling, if I am conscious of a perception, I cannot be that perception, etc. If I am conscious of the thought "I am" I cannot be that thought, nor can that thought ever correctly reference me.
This is why the subject tends to be conflated with consciousness (i.e. the pre-reflexive presence) of the object, or with the lived body (i.e., the ajjhattikāni āyatanāni): both are inherently negative in immediate experience. We need to delve into the nature of the a priori to get a sense of the conditionality that the Buddha speaks of.
"Dhammā=Ideas. This is the clue to much of the Buddha's teaching." ~ Ven. Ñanavira, Commonplace Book
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by PadmaPhala »

nagarjuna was maitreya...
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by Moth »

pulga wrote: This is why the subject tends to be conflated with consciousness (i.e. the pre-reflexive presence) of the object, or with the lived body (i.e., the ajjhattikāni āyatanāni): both are inherently negative in immediate experience. We need to delve into the nature of the a priori to get a sense of the conditionality that the Buddha speaks of.
Can you elaborate on what is meant by the nature of the a priori? Also, the word reflexive, I've come across it many times in Nanavira's writings but am still not sure what it means. Does it reference meta-cognition, like thinking about thinking? Thank you.
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by pulga »

Moth wrote: Can you elaborate on what is meant by the nature of the a priori? Also, the word reflexive, I've come across it many times in Nanavira's writings but am still not sure what it means. Does it reference meta-cognition, like thinking about thinking? Thank you.
I can only recommend some of Dan Zahavi's writings on subjectivity. The sixth chapter from The New Husserl titled Inner Time-Consciousness and Pre-reflective Self-awareness is particularly good. Just a footnote from the chapter reads:
However, one should not forget that the act of reflection is itself a pre-reflectively
self-given act. The reflected act must already be self-aware, since it is the fact of its being
already mine, already being given in the first-person mode of presentation that allows me to
reflect upon it. And the act of reflection must also already be pre-reflectively self-aware, since
it is this that permits it to recognize the reflected act as belonging to the same subjectivity
as itself. (emphasis added)
As I understand Ven. Ñanavira, rather than positing pre-reflexive self-awareness as an absolute as does Husserl, he interprets it as an infinite "perpendicular hierarchy" in relation to and founded upon the experience of a thing -- a phenomenon -- its meaning being determined within a horizontal hierarchy of the particular and the general. In order for a pre-reflexively given thing to have any meaning it must be contextualized -- i.e. placed against a background -- and this places it in a world of ever broadening layers of complexity whether we attend to such layers or not. Consciousness is merely the presence of such things. He is putting forth an infinite regress -- and stripping time of its foundation -- which is perhaps why he's been ignored by academic phenomenologists for the most part.

If you're not squeamish about using scribd.com, you can download The New Husserl from their website.
"Dhammā=Ideas. This is the clue to much of the Buddha's teaching." ~ Ven. Ñanavira, Commonplace Book
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by gavesako »

M.C. Escher -- I think that he could see some of the cycles of Samsara in the world around him and especially in the human mind: the eternal recursivw patterns.

And now watch this one, a slightly improved version of Escher's stairs going up and down at the same time (the banana can be seen as representing craving). It is really like the suffering in the cycles of Samsara!

A Day in the Life of an M.C. Escher Drawing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jRmo7iM5vk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Anekajati samsaram...
Wandering through repeated births, searching for the house builder that constructed this house...



Discussion continued at:

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Bhikkhu Gavesako
Kiṃkusalagavesī anuttaraṃ santivarapadaṃ pariyesamāno... (MN 26)

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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by BubbaBuddhist »

Doug Hofstadter lives here in Bloomington Indiana and is associated with Indiana University, and is interested in the local (very large) Buddhist community here. GEB is one of my favorite books of all time. When I read it back in the 1980's it blew my mind, and I enjoyed it when he took over the games column in Scientific American (much more so than when Martin Gardener wrote it). I should invite him to join this forum, I'm sure he'd enjoy it.

I once performed in a theater that had one of those transformation Escher borders wrapped around the wall. I opened with this joke off the top of my head: "Did you know M. C. Escher once got depressed and tried to shoot himself in the head and wound up killing his next door neighbor?"

Two people laughed. But they laughed hard.

BB
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Re: Godel, Escher, Bach ...and Buddha

Post by Digity »

He wrote a follow up book called: "I am a Strange Loop"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_a_Strange_Loop" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's about this whole notion of the self.

I own GEB, but still haven't read it all...it's a heavy, heavy read!
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