the illusion of subject object duality 01:21:14 because the moment i think of myself as a self then i think that there's me a subject and then there's my objects there's the i and there's its visual field and they're totally different from one 01:21:26 another and that the basic structure of experience is there's me the subject who's always a subject and never an object and then all of those objects and i take that to be primordially given to 01:21:39 be the way experience just is instead of being a construction or superimposition so that's one illusion

i want to begin by talking about the imagine nature which is the first of those three natures um it's really tempting when i look at a flower like a rose um a nice red rose 00:35:22 to think that the color the redness is right on the rose unless you are extremely accomplished when you look at a red rose you see the color right out there in the rose and 00:35:34 you assume that your eyes are simply detecting color that is in the rose actually that can't possibly be true color is something that emerges um as 00:35:45 john pointed out this morning through the interaction of our sense faculties and whatever is happening outside of them and the color emerges in our minds but we imagine things to exist outside of consciousness just as we perceive 00:35:58 them and that nature that we ascribe to the objects of our experience is their imagined nature it's an imagined nature because we project it out there even though on reflection we each know 00:36:11 that the redness can't possibly be painted out there in the rose footnote it's uh equally stupid to think that when we detect the redness we're detecting in inner red paint that 00:36:23 somehow um is just detected by an inner eye i assure you that when you look inside your brain you will find no such inner red paint

there's a second kind of cognitive illusion this first cognitive illusion as i've suggested is thematized both in buddhist philosophy and in western philosophy but the second 00:07:06 kind of illusion i find not thematized so much in the west though in some quarters it is some but not all but very much stabilized in in buddhist philosophy and that is the superimposition of subject object 00:07:19 duality um and when we do that um we take the nature of our experience to be primordially structured as subject standing outside of the world viewing an 00:07:31 object now we always know we know that on the slightest bit of reflection that that's crazy that we are biological organisms embedded in a physical world and that 00:07:43 all of our experience is the result of that embodied embedded and embedded experience in the world it's still however almost irresistible to have that kind of image of ourselves as wittgenstein put it as like the eye 00:07:56 to the visual field that we stand outside of the world as pure subject with everything else taken as object and that reflexive taking of experience that way is a very profound kind of cognitive 00:08:09 illusion one that is extremely hard to shake to overcome illusion though we first have to come to know that illusion better you need to know your enemy in 00:08:21 order to defeat your enemy and so i'm going to spend a lot of time trying to acquaint us with the nature of these illusions that is to say if we want to avoid a pointless trek through the desert uh for 00:08:34 water we'd better know that what we're seeing is a mirage and not an oasis when we become aware of that fact then we're able to redirect ourselves in the right uh in the right direction

so in this essay i'm going to explore the what i take to be the very most profound illusions diagnosed in the buddhist tradition and one and the most difficult to overcome and the primary one will be the illusion 00:08:58 that we have immediate access and vertical access to our own experience that we have a direct first-person access to our own minds that gives us our minds just as they are that the duality between subject and object that 00:09:11 structures our understanding is primordial this is the illusion that we're subject standing over and against the world rather than um interdependent beings in the world that's the conviction that we might know 00:09:24 the external world only through the mediation of our sensory and cognitive faculties but that we know the world only in virtue of immediate access to the outputs of those faculties

In computer science, a tree is a widely used abstract data type that simulates a hierarchical tree structure

Model theory recognizes and is intimately concerned with a duality: it examines semantical elements (meaning and truth) by means of syntactical elements (formulas and proofs) of a corresponding language

In logic, functions or relations A and B are considered dual if A(¬x) = ¬B(x), where ¬ is logical negation. The basic duality of this type is the duality of the ∃ and ∀ quantifiers in classical logic. These are dual because ∃x.¬P(x) and ¬∀x.P(x) are equivalent for all predicates P in classical logic

the ∧ and ∨ operators are dual in this sense, because (¬x ∧ ¬y) and ¬(x ∨ y) are equivalent. This means that for every theorem of classical logic there is an equivalent dual theorem. De Morgan's laws are examples

Related concepts in other fields are: In natural language, the coordinating conjunction "and". In programming languages, the short-circuit and control structure. In set theory, intersection. In predicate logic, universal quantification.

Mathematically speaking, necessity and sufficiency are dual to one another. For any statements S and N, the assertion that "N is necessary for S" is equivalent to the assertion that "S is sufficient for N".

This is an abstract form of De Morgan's laws, or of duality applied to lattices.

A plane graph is said to be self-dual if it is isomorphic to its dual graph.

In mathematical contexts, duality has numerous meanings[1] although it is "a very pervasive and important concept in (modern) mathematics"[2] and "an important general theme that has manifestations in almost every area of mathematics".[3]

Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives, Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see

You have been concerned in the last few days that you are not making the connection between what I have been discussing with you and your daily experience. The simple fact is that you have been trying to relate infinite ideas to finite beliefs. There is no connection. There is no connection between Mind and Its manifestation. They are one. It is only from the standpoint of ego—of finite, three-dimensional misperception—that there can seem to be a “connection.” Since ego separates itself from what it sees, it divides things into subject and object, “in here” and “out there,” me and thee, and all the rest of the dualism. This prompts the attempt to manipulate all of these disconnected aspects, so that they will harmonize in such a way as to not destroy the basic illusion of the existence of “ego.” Thus, from the three-dimensional standpoint, it seems obvious that the misidentification of Identity called “ego” must become, do, initiate, manipulate, and achieve. One cannot bring these endeavors into that Place where Self is properly identified and experienced as Conscious Being or Fourth-dimensional Man, since the basic illusion of separateness has no existence there.

PAUL: Raj, something is blocking me from being able to be comfortable with what you are saying. RAJ: I would think by now that “comfortable” and “uncomfortable” would no longer be valid guideposts for you, since those are three-dimensional points of view. You know that when you are in that Place, you are experiencing Absolute Comfort, undivided in any way. If you want to bounce back out onto the surface of your finite consciousness, you will, indeed, find comfort and discomfort, pain and pleasure, gain and loss. I am afraid, Paul, that this is the one essential step which you must make yourself. I can encourage you to take it. I can explain to you why you can take it. But it has to come from within your Being. What is blocking it is simply fear. There is no actual opposition or roadblock. PAUL: In the past, I have experienced healings without taking this radical step. I have experienced benefits of prayer and metaphysical work. I did not have to be under the gun, so to speak. Isn’t unfoldment supposed to be natural?

How we meet this challenge depends on how we address the following fundamental question about teaching our digital-age children: Should we teach our children as though they have two lives, or one?