Regarding presenting evidence of absence

[Ramakrishnan Balasubramanian]

Vidya wrote:

>> >No cognition, but Sruti. "yatra tvasya sarvam AtmaivAbhUt ...", "neha
>> >nAnAsti kincana", etc. We cannot present evidence for absence of anything,
>>
>> Such a cognition exists in deep sleep, does it not? From the point of view,
>of
>> the waking state, what you say is perfectly true though. An impartial
>analysis
>> would of course say that "cognition to show that there is only one", exists
>in
>
>You are correct. I was thinking only of the waking state, as debate takes
>place only in the waking state. However, sushupti provides only the
>evidence that no objects are cognized. For the advaitin, this might be
>evidence for the absence of multiplicity, including multiple perceivers.
>It is not necessarily so for the dvaitin. For the dvaitin, sushupti could
>conceivably be thought of as the individual self entering some separate
>world, without positing that this individual self is the same as brahman,
>i.e. it does not prove that there is only One. Only Sruti does that.

You say that "sushupti provides only the evidence that no objects are
cognized". There are 2 things here. The first point is that I cannot make a
statement like "I don't perceive the Taj Mahal now, so it does not exist". I
can, as you say "I don't perceive the Tajmahal, so it provides only evidence
that it is not cognized".

But what about sushupti? We are talking about 2 different states, jaagarat and
sushupti here. So, in sushupti there is no perception of duality and no
questions are raised in sushupti itself about whether there is nothing or
whether it is merely non-perception. A fair comparison entails that the
sushupti avasthaa be examined from the same state, and not from jaagrat
avasthaa. What I mean is, we perceive oneness in sushupti and do not question
it there. The questions arise only in the waking state. So saying that
"sushupti provides only the evidence that no objects are cognized" is only from
the point of view of the waking state, which is not IMO, a fair comparison.

I believe that the verses of the BU I quoted also say the same thing. It
_asserts_ that there is oneness in sushupti and not that there is duality and
it disappears. Of course I am not saying here that sushupti=mokshha (just in
case I am misunderstood).

Ramakrishnan.
--
Utinam logica falsa tuam philosophiam totam suffodiant (May faulty logic
undermine your entire philosophy)           -- strong Vulcan curse
                  http://yake.ecn.purdue.edu/~rbalasub/