- Something never comes out of nothing. This is a hypothesis, challenged both by modern science (Maxwell’s demon) and also by Buddhism: Samsara or the illusory world comes from the great Void, shunyata.
Nope, this is an empircal fact. Nobody has ever seen something come out of nothing, there is always a cause for it. If there is smoke, then there is fire, smoke does not just come into being without cause. It is found in the empirical world that an effect can only issue out of a cause which it is inherent in. You never get an orange tree producing an apple or a human couple producing a dog. If something could come out of nothing then effects would be issuing randomly out of everything.
If something could out of nothing then the tree would come into being without a seed; an adult human would come into being before a child human.
It is very obvious that the law that all effects have causes and all effects are inherent within the cause is axiomatic.
Buddhism and Maxwell’s demons just alternative viewpoints in need of proof for their assertions.
- Gross and massive aggregates are gradually built from ever more subtle and minute sub-substances. This appears irrefutable.
Yes, absolutely. Things always start out small and subtle, then they get bigger and gross. The tree begins first as a seed; the adult first begins as an adult; the solid first begins as a gas; the molecule first begins as a quark.
Mind and matter are transformations of the same substance because they are able to contact each other. This is also a hypothesis: Purusha is apparently also capable of contacting Prakrti because it can observe Prakrti. Yet Purusha and Prakrti are said to be totally different substances. So the fact that substances can contact each other is no proof of their similarity.
Again empirical evidence shows clearly that for any two substances to interact they must have a common medium which is a common substance of both substances. Why does the eye and the photons in light interact? They interact because the eye is made out of photosensitive material. On the other hand, the nose is not, so it does not interact with light.
Why does a magnet and a needle interact? They interact because they both have magnetic property. A piece of cloth does not have magnetic property so do it does not interact with the magnet.
Why does hydrogen and oxygen interact and make water? They interact because they have compatible atomic structures(protons, electrons and neutrons) which combine to form water.
So again empirical evidence is showing that it is an axiomatic that if two substances interact they are really the same substance.
A priori it would appear that mind and matter/energy are fundamentally different unless transformation of one into the other can be proven. Here again there is the experiment of Maxwell’s demon, implying that information could be transformed into energy. Without wanting to comment on that experiment in detail, there is also a flaw in the conclusion of that experiment, namely the conclusion that information is transformable into energy: It is only by intervention from the outside world that the typical information leading to a decrease in entropy is achieved. The whole system increases its entropy if the action of feeding the information to the device is taken into account. Mind is eventually information in the form of woven ontological concepts and functional algorithms. It is a system of information patterns wherein complexity reduction takes place. In fact it is just as right or unproven as the point of view that mind and matter are of equal substance to uphold the view that Mind is the platonic separate world of ideas, which can but need not use a material substrate to exist. Whereas Mind can enable a meaningful interaction with the material world, technically it does not need the material world to exist if the Platonic view is right.
Mind is not the same as physical matter(gross matter) because mind is subtle matter - but it is matter. Information is not the same as energy - granted - but it is still matter. Samkhya have a very precise and reductionist scheme for what constitutes matter and that anything that is possessed of the properties of the gunas i.e., it undergoes the states of going from a neutral state, to a state of transformation and inertia. Physical matter does that; energy does that; information does that; and mind also does that.
They are distinct from consciousness which does not have the properties of the gunas. Consciousness has the property of seeing and knowing. It is the one that knows all change. The changes of physical states, energy states, information states and mental states.
As mind is ever more subtle than any form of apparent material aggregate, mind is the origin of matter, not vice versa. If as argued above mind and matter belong to different dimensions, there is no way to prove this hypothesis. Because we cannot compare apples and pears. Subtlety as regards which characteristic? Both mind and matter build aggregates true, both have degrees of complexity, but in a different dimension. The one in the form of information which can exist independent of the substrate, the other in patterns which are formed by the substrate.
Remember, apples and pears are both fruit and fruit is material 
Mind and matter are not different at all. This has been proven in modern philosophy of science which have shown the so-called unique properties of mind such as cognition can be replicated by information systems. We can even create executive programs that replicate the functions of the ahamkara/ego. It is very clear they are the same substance because one can see clearly that if one affects the physical state of the brain(either chemically or electromagnetically) it has direct impact on the mental state - always. So much so we can predict what will happen to a person when a physical state is affected.
If they were independent substances why should affecting one affect the other? Me and you are independent, what happens to me, does not happen to you. If I eat cake I taste the cake, not you.
There is a great deal of similarity between the way mental information consists of patterns and the way matter is organised. But similarity does not mean identity. If one does consider the patterns in the material world to be information as well, then one can also state that matter is a form of Mind and thus arrive at the notion of panpsychism via the backdoor.
Here we not only just have similarity, but clear empirical evidence that they interact all the time. These interactions can be predicted with remarkable accuracy. We know what the neural correlates are for many mental states, how simply toggling an area of the brain can cause a mystical experience to happen, depersonalization, recall of memory etc.
Now for all clarity: I do not deny the theory of panpsychism, I even adhere to that view, but that is rather a belief. I do not find the above reasoning of points 1-5 completely convincing or completely watertight. So I’ll continue to probe this topic until I am convinced of one or the other. I’ll also post this in the thread on the mind.
It is not a belief, but based on very hard empirical evidence and sound and demonstrative reasoning based on that.
As to the present discussion on the one vs. many purushas, here again my point of view of one purusha only is a (somewhat vague) belief, which does not stem from arrogance (I do not think I am God, I think Brahman is the only underlying reality in me and when I realise that, there will be no “I” anymore. That is my I-ness will be sacrificed and I will cease to exist). But as I like reason (more than the so inaccessible states of meditation), I’ll continue to probe this topic until I am convinced of one or the other.
The plurality of purushas is not established for the following reason: all purushas are actually unconditioned really. They are never actually embodied in prakriti but their embodient is just the error of misindeitication(I am not my body nor my mind for they are my objects of observation) Therefore all purushas are equally as unconditioned. Therefore they are all the same observer. Therefore there is only one purusha.
The argument against classical Samkhya that says owing to different births, different results and different private states the multiplicity of purushas is established has been refuted by Samkhya scholars. The different births, different results and different private states are taking place only to the multiple minds - and all mind are the product of prakriti. Therefore these things are not occuring to purusha but prakriti.
As a last point, addressed to Surya: Why do you give Asuri the label “Christian”? I have read nothing from him that has anything to do with “Christian”, I thought he was a Hindu just like you.
He is not Hindu. He has made it clear many times he is Christian. Even recently he(bizzarely) tried to fit Samkhya philosophy with Christian trinity. Look at his post history. He has clear Christian biases.
