What does nonduality actually imply?

[quant-um]

I feel like it is not most people who believe the "what is true for a person, is true for them"...most (in my experience at least) seem to think that people can't have "true-for you" but rather only "just true" when it comes to ontology. Sure many believe one man's trash another's treasure, but that is colloquial and not analogous with this concept applied to ontology. Essentially, the theory is that the Devil DOES actually exist for some people, because they collectively created that reality for themselves. There is a lot of theory surrounding how belief manifests reality especially in mass meditation studies. So could it possibly be that the mind flayer is real in some other distant universe and some creative human just picked up on that frequency or through dream state gleaned it astrally? Getting woo woo yes, but these are all serious things beings studied now (especially astral projection showing signs of proof).

Perhaps YEC is describing something that did happen on some other timeline of earth, perhaps what they say did happen but they misunderstand an alien spaceship for a god. Imagine Adam and Eve's last memory after their MIB like memory wipe being a spaceship leaving the earth...haha. All I am saying is if we can't prove something wrong, why make a claim it is instead of say it is a belief/view. How could you possibly prove it is a fact that YEC is 100% wrong?

My current definition of nonduality is "non-absolute-ness", but I am still entertaining those presented in this post's questions which is the reason for posting this. I am trying to lock in a definition by presenting my options I have given myself.

[ScottRoberts]

I feel like it is not most people who believe the "what is true for a person, is true for them"...most (in my experience at least) seem to think that people can't have "true-for you" but rather only "just true" when it comes to ontology. Sure many believe one man's trash another's treasure, but that is colloquial and not analogous with this concept applied to ontology. Essentially, the theory is that the Devil DOES actually exist for some people, because they collectively created that reality for themselves. There is a lot of theory surrounding how belief manifests reality especially in mass meditation studies. So could it possibly be that the mind flayer is real in some other distant universe and some creative human just picked up on that frequency or through dream state gleaned it astrally? Getting woo woo yes, but these are all serious things beings studied now (especially astral projection showing signs of proof).

If you are saying "you create your own reality", I agree with that. But note that this is impossible in a materialist ontology, and possible in an idealist one. So my only objection is in calling it 'non-absoluteness'. There is the absolute that different people create their own realities. However, one must note that "reality" is being used in two different senses here. There is the reality that I experience, and the all-encompassing reality within which this specific reality of mine is being created. It is this second meaning that I would call absolute, and name as conscious activity.

[quant-um]

The version of non-absoluteness I refer to is that every conscious entity has their own reality and they co-create other realities together. I have my reality, you yours, the money tree in my living room has its, I share one with my dog, my dog shares one with my cats, the big tree in my backyard shares one with the grass, etc. One of our 100 trillion cells (which science now regard as living sentient beings and universes in their own) has its own reality with the cell next to it. Essentially, I see it as infinite realities and no absolute one reality. That is my take on Anekantavada.

On the shared one absolute reality you speak of, what if the only reason we can't turn a cat into a dog is because we didn't create the dog or because we would have to collectively do it since we collectively believe in it currently. Perhaps we could do such feats of magic with collective belief. Even if we tested it and found it not to work even if every human actually believed a cat could turn into a dog, what if this is not the only place these animals live and we would have to get tons of planets to do the same together, but then you gotta ask where did cat and dog come from? Where they genetically engineered by some alien or created by a divine being or simply just come from evolution...we don't collectively know/believe anything on that yet.

[Eugene I]

Essentially, I see it as infinite realities and no absolute one reality. That is my take on Anekantavada.

The infinite realities you are talking about are manifested, constructed and perceived realities. They do exist and they are real because our experiences of them are real. But these are the realities of forms. However, there must be some fundamental-level reality which allows these fabricated realities to be constructed, because they need to be constructed "out of" something, there needs to be some fundamental substance out of which they are constructed. And that substance has to be the same everywhere, otherwise if we, conscious agents, or if the fabricated realities, would be constructed out of fundamentally different substances, we/they could not interact with each other. This fundamental "substance" is the absolute one reality. Different ontologies have different assumptions about the nature of such substance, for example in materialism it is "matter", in idealism it is "consciousness", in Kantian transcendentalism or in neutral monism it is some inconceivable "thing in itself", etc. Also, different ontologies have different assumptions on whether we, sentient beings, are ever able to know and directly experience the "substance". Idealism says "yes" - it is your own awareness/consciousness that is the "fundamental substance" of the universe, and you can experientially and directly know it in your own private conscious experience. Other ontologies say "no" to that.

[quant-um]

Ah ok, we're talking the primacy of consciousness then.

My personal opinion stems from pandeism, suggesting that our creator being/energy/thing became what it created and then ceased to exist as a separate entity. This solves the problem of evil as well.

On top of that I theorize that the creator created itself when it went from consciousness to self awareness, consciousness defined as primal ontological essence, being, it, the. Once it became self aware, then it tried to figure out what it was, creating the first sapience experience and what most would call God.

That being said, the base reality you speak of would be what was past God and now ceases to exist in this theory...sort of like maternal death. So then the fundamental substance is just these perception realities as you call them. They are one in the same instead of only separate...so both separate and one, that is Anekantavada. Again not claiming this to be true, just my opinion/current belief system.

[Eugene I]

That being said, the base reality you speak of would be what was past God and now ceases to exist in this theory

Not possible, the fundamental nature of the base reality, of the the "substance" that everything is made of, cannot change, no matter what happens with the "things" (forms) made of this "substance" and no matter how they develop.

[quant-um]

That's why I said "in theory" but that doesn't imply actuality. So God ends up becoming consciousness, which then created and keeps creating the all.

[SanteriSatama]

Advaita / non-dualism has two basic classical interpretations:

1) Substance philosophy interpretation, advaita vedanta, as well as Neoplatonism etc., corresponds roughly with idealist monism. Implication of this approach is metaphysical postulation of quantification. Negation of two -> One.

2) Process philosophy interpretation, e.g. Mahayana Buddhism, Bohmian Holomovement etc. Quantification is not fundamental precondition in this approach. Negation of two -> process dialectics.

[Soul_of_Shu]

This clip may be edifying, yet what does it mean with regards to the primacy of consciousness, when saying that mind too can be reduced to an "inconceivable reality that's beyond all of our concepts"?

[SanteriSatama]

This clip may be edifying, yet what does it mean with regards to the primacy of consciousness, when saying that mind too can be reduced to an "inconceivable reality that's beyond all of our concepts"?

Already at linguistic level, the fuzzy interrelations of fuzzy concepts of mind, consciousness, awareness etc., and their various negations, and continuing to similar and dissimilar confusions in other languages, and how those might relate to and unrelate to English, is pretty inconceivable.