My reply is going to be short but encompasses everything touched on above.

Again, you cant have an experience without an experiencer, an observer without the observed, a tango without two. The self is real in this.

But non dualism says the two are secretly one, and one is secretly nothing bc theres nothing to relate it to.

Your understanding of non dualism is where we are having confusion i think. A definition for non dualism really cant be put into words, or shown, or viewed in any real way.

Because its definition negates its own definition

This might be relevant, Jay Garfield published a book quite a while ago which largely argued we intuitively see ourselves as separate. See Evan Thompson's reponse below -

https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/losing-ourselves-learning-to-live-without-a-self/

Well, yeah. I read your submission, Stephen. But there seems to be a lot of buzz about him. Your statement wasn that helpful on the gossip side …

In the second half, which is paywalled if you don't request a free subscription, Sam takes issue with Nussbaum's assertion that there can be no hierarchy between living creatures, and that one should care as much about the killing of a mouse as the killing of a human. When pressed, she admitted that she wouldn't feel the same in both scenarios, but only because she is imperfect.

This may have been the most important question raised in the discussion: is it only "speciesism" that leads us to value complex life more than "less complex" life, or is there actually a rational basis from which to ask the question of which animals' lives are more important? To what degree are all creatures conscious, and what level of consciousness is deemed "conscious enough" for us to feel empathy? What kind of world would we be living in if we actually cared less about four homeless people than about five squirrels?

This touched on some of the same ideas that Sam has discussed with Peter Singer, Uma Valeti (Memphis Meats), and others, as well as one of his hobby horses, consciousness.

Ok, I still don't exactly see how the self is an illusion. Are you saying the self appears as something separate but in actuality it's not, thus the illusion? I've got quite a bit of experience debating non dualists & generally quite a lot of thoughts regarding these kinds of topics etc.

Firstly, I don't see how the self is experienced as an illusion (a claim non dualists like to make). What's really happening is a kind of pre-reflective self-consciousness, which is simply indicating the fact that consciousness is reflexive -- that is consciousness is at the same time consciousness of consciousness. Moreover, it's so even if it is not discursively or reflectively noted in thoughts "I am conscious". See the quote below -

"To be self-aware is not to capture a pure self or self-object that exists separately from the stream of experience, rather it is to be conscious of one’s experience in its intrinsic first-person mode of givenness. When Hume, in a famous passage in A Treatise of Human Nature (1739), declares that he cannot find a self when he searches his experiences, but finds only particular perceptions or feelings, it could be argued that he overlooks something in his analysis, namely the specific givenness of his own experiences. "

They also like to say there is no self to be found within experience, but I also find this problematic. Why should anyone (who is not terribly confused and who isn't pre-committed to Humean framework of analysis) expect the self to be "part" of experience? What if I believed the self to be the transcendental subject that grounds experience and bind togethers the 'bundles of impressions' diachronically and synchronically for the unity of consciousness or something along this line? It's a reasonable speculation (although we shouldn't buy this idea immediately without critical evaluation of what exactly are its implication), and yet simply 'not finding self in experience' would have no implication for someone who believes the self to be such. In fact that would be precisely what this position would predict -- that you will not find a 'self' in experience.

Particularly, even if I believed that I am a separate 'self' behind the experiences as something that has experiences -- how does not finding any 'self' in experience prove anything? If I am indeed a 'separate' experiencer, precisely because of that, I would expect to not find 'myself' IN experiences.

If anything finding a 'self' IN experience (whatever that would even mean) would probably be a better argument 'against' the existence of a 'separate' self.

Once you even begin to look for a 'self' in experience as if it's even a candidate of something to be found in experience, you would already be starting from a question-begging framework against someone who would, even semi-coherently, believe in any 'separate self' (whatever that even means).

As my submission statement said, Sam Harris is the author of The Moral Landscape, Free Will, Lying, The End of Faith, and other NYT best sellers. Sam received a degree in philosophy from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA. He has also practiced meditation for more than 30 years and has studied with many Tibetan, Indian, Burmese, and Western meditation teachers, both in the United States and abroad. He is the creator of the meditation app Waking Up.

Should physics be forgiven?

Never have humans ever had so much capacity to destroy. Physics has put the world into a state of moral decay, where threatening others with nuclear holocaust is seen as a necessary evil for a ruler. Nuclear war seems imminent, and nobody seems to blame the people who dedicated their lives to create it. Physics has paradoxically made it impossible to fully understand the universe: the nuclear bomb has put a hard limit on how long humans can experience and study the cosmos.
Everyone who spent their lives in dedication to this practice has lived in vein. The end result of finding out about our cosmos is about to end civilization.
Scientists like to see themselves and their work as morally neutral, at worst. But I don't understand how science can forgive itself. Even medicine, for all its life-affirming pursuits, could put the tools of bioweapons in the hands of every man evil enough to cause mass death.
How will the histories (that will never be created, due to the true destruction of the nuclear bomb) judge our pursuit of knowledge about the universe? Will they see physicists as wonderers about our cosmos, or will they see the secrets of life and death as a morally questionable pursuit?
If God does exist, hopefully he can find solace in knowing humans can understand the cosmos as we work to destroy it.

Some people have to play the roles of believers in god and some have to play the non believers as it takes two sides to play a game. We are god playing a game with himself.

This implys that we are separate from god, or that there is “someone” that dosnt have free will. But we are god. God being the core experiencer or “self” that we all share.

I didnt mean you in particular, i meant we usually see ourselves as separate

Exactly, like a light cant shine on itself, ergo you dont exist to yourself.

The self is the nothing, experiencing the something.

>It is an illusion, you see your “self” as separate from your experience.

No I don't, I see 'myself' as that upon which has the experiences, i.e the organism/human being as a whole.

The illusion is real lol, i think we can both find common ground in that answer

It is an illusion, you see your “self” as separate from your experience. But one cannot exist without the other. No apply to your understanding of what i said above.

Right, I thought so, so you're saying ultimately there is 'one self' that everyone is, I'm familiar with these kinds of frameworks. I was just trying to argue against the idea the self is experienced as an illusion, which is typically what non dualists like to claim.

Basically saying. Something is synonymous with nothing.

At the cores core no, but yes just ONE self. The confusion lies in non dualism. Black symbolizing nothing White symbolizing the ONE

neither color can exist without the other, therefore they can be looked at as One entity. This is where the paradox kicks in cus now we are back where we started. The two are ONE now, but there is nothing besides it lol. Its impossible to describe in words non dualism bc the very act of doing so implies a dualism.

>There is a self, but its not a separate self, an experiencer, but not separate from the experience.

I'm confused, are you saying there is a self or there isn't a self?

first paragraph, (if nothing is separate)

There is a self, but its not a separate self, an experiencer, but not separate from the experience. And again, is nothing is separate, than nothing exists.

Think of two points in a void, the position of one point can only be described -in relation- to the other point. 1 point in a void has an indeterminable position. (This scenario doesn’t paint the full picture, as the void itself can be looked at as a third point (or entity). Non dualism would say that the single point and the void are secretly -one- bc they only exist in relation to each other. So behind this -oneness- is nothingness, because there is nothing to relate the -oneness- to. Existence is entirely rooted in relationship, or the context of separate things in relation to each other.

>By “I” i dont mean the human being, i mean the experiencer behind all experience, to which no labels (except for the purposes of this conversation (“I”)) can be attributed to.

What is this experiencer behind all experiences exactly? It sounds like you're describing some sort of self?

>And if nothing is separate, then nothing exists, bc in order to have “some-thing” you have to have something else to reference it.

Depends what you mean by separate, but I'm not sure how you've jumped to the conclusion that 'nothing exists,' what do you mean by this exactly?

>This is known as non-dualism. And is why there is a buddhist belief in “no-self” or nothing separate.

Two very separate schools of thought. Anyway, while Buddhists seem to deny a self, Vedantins (advaita vedantins) and others, argue there precisely is a self -- a substratum witness consciousness which grounds change in the first place. Both can be non-dual experiences because the experience is not separate from the witness consciousness. Advanced meditators tend to disagree on these topics, you can come away from such experiences with conclusions that there is a self, much like you can come away with no - self conclusions.

>My question is why do they have methods, if there is no “I” that can really do anything. If my will is the universes will as a whole.

This is a question regarding free will. Most modern day philosophers seem to be compatibilists, the belief that free will is compatible with determinism (which is what I presume you mean by the 'will of the universe.)' In terms of there being no 'I' that can do anything, it's unclear what you're saying. I am a human being who has certain kinds of capacities - rationality, decision making, bodily movement etc, I can clearly do 'things.' But I suppose you're concerned with this potentially being some kind of an illusion, wherein whilst I may think I am acting freely in reality it's the 'will of the universe.' For counter arguments to all our actions being the 'will of the universe' look into compatibilism -

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/

Bc the self is an ever changing, non static, mask, that grows from past experiences in memories.

By “I” i dont mean the human being, i mean the experiencer behind all experience, to which no labels (except for the purposes of this conversation (“I”)) can be attributed to.

This “I” represents a self that is not separate from anything, simply bc it is what experiences everything.

And if nothing is separate, then nothing exists, bc in order to have “some-thing” you have to have something else to reference it. This is known as non-dualism. And is why there is a buddhist belief in “no-self” or nothing separate.

My question is why do they have methods, if there is no “I” that can really do anything. If my will is the universes will as a whole.

My point was religion, spirituality, philosophy and esoteric thought has led to some scientific advancement and important scientific thought. I never said all or most or anything like that either. You could run a google search and find Cambridge or Ivy League academics saying similar things.

I am pretty sure the essence of your post was to give religion credit for scientific advancement.