Let’s suppose that you are in a meditation.
“Why do I need to follow rules?”
“Because rules are necessary to maintain a society”
“But why should society be maintained?”
“Because there will be a chaos if there is no stable society”
“But why is chaos worse than society?”
“Because in chaos life is much harder”
“What does it mean by “harder”?”
“People will kill each other, there will be less convenience, violations”
“And why is killing or violations a bad thing”
“Because it cause pain to people and makes them sad”
“And why do people feel sadness or pain?”
“Even if it cause pain and sadness to the people, why is causing pain and sadness to other people worse than causing happiness to other people?”
“Why we should follow our emotions?”
“Why should there be a reason for everything?”
“Why do we say “Why”?
“Because an event without a cause is illogical”
“And what is logic?”
“Why do we need to follow logic?”
“Can logic prove itself?”
. . .
The way I was instructed when undertaking the 10-day Vipassana Meditation retreat, is that whatever thoughts arise, don’t try and suppress them, but don’t follow them. Watch them arise and notice that they will peter out after a short period. Return to ‘mindfulness of breath’. This would be the approach to the all the thoughts you have listed under the ‘let’s suppose’.
That is a great advice, but more precisely, after you understand, which some people call it as an “enlightenment”, you won’t need to try to stop being obsessed with your thoughts - because, what it teaches you is that thoughts are you and you are thoughts, you are your world and the world is from you, but this is not a perfect explanation, as language uses logic, and “from” or “you and the world” “dream and reality” is also inside the system of logic. Better explanation will be that . . . Concept of you and others, you and the world is also a logical thought. And when I say it is a logical thought, calling it a logical thought is also a logical thought. So I can’t really explain this perfectly in language as language uses logic. That’s why Zen masters say that use your intuition rather than words.
Ultimately, even though this meta-logical concept cannot be perfectly explained with in language, the closest explanation I can give is: “Why be obsessed with your life and thoughts when they are a dream?”
Have you noticed how much things matter to us in our dreams?
Calling it a “dream” can be a romanticization because you can always come back to reality from dream. But still, reality also has a path to escape.
If we consider reality as a dream, then waking up from reality can be something that … people usually don’t like or are afraid of.
But does this transition really matter when we consider how much dreams and waking life feed back into each other and carry forward from one another the same fears and struggles?
Nuh.
There is no logical contradiction in something’s happening, uncaused.
Logic is using causality.
Logical necessity is also a form of causality.
Where?
“Causality” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Open Logic Project, for instance.
Nor is necessity causal.
What framework is required to determine if a proposition is rather true or false?
Depends on the proposition.
What has that to do with causation?
What do you think causation is?
Logical evaluation is a type of causality.
A mere assertion will not suffice. Logic and causation are quite different notions.
Can you explain how proposition is determined if it is rather true or false? I am telling you that semantic evaluation of logic is a type of causality.
Not sure what you are asking. The way we check if a statement is true or false varies depending on the statement. We check the truth of “2+2=4” in a different ways to how we check the truth of “Charles is King of England” or “The cup is full”.
I am telling you that logic is not a type of causality.
Notice how this conversation has been diverted from Eastern philosophy to the relationship of logic and causation which was the subject of this thread and might better be discussed there.
My only observation about the original post is that the opening line ‘suppose you are in a meditation’ is not obviously connected to anything that follows, all of which are philosophical questions and conundrums with no apparent relationship to meditation.
Presumably, since the author of the OP claimed in that OP that an event without a cause is illogical, the relation between logic and causation is directly relevant o the OP.
But yes, the OP seems closer to the sense “meditative discourse on a subject” than the “act of meditating, continuous calm thought upon some subject” that is the usual Eastern variety.
More your Western meditation.
Yes, I grant that I read the OP tendentiously, taking ‘in meditation’ to refer to Eastern meditation, which it might not be (although it does have ‘Eastern Philosophy’ in the title). The term also means ‘to consider deeply or reflect on a principle’. That seems probably closer to the intent.