With respect, I'm sorry to say that you are both enguaged in a completely different conversation about a completely different topic.
Kate. The purpose of the notion of Nirvania is a perspective upon the cycle of death and rebirth.
Buddihsm is rooted in Indian philosophy which essentially takes the life force as being eternal. (To put it crudely for brevity). The entire philosophy is based upon that singular notion. Most of the principal traditions see the individual life forces as eminating from a singular. Thatb the objective is to break the cycle and not to be reborn. (Most Eastern philosophers will shudder at that summary. But it is, essentially accurate).
ME philosophy takes the individual as being eternaly individual. That each individual is personally culpable. That individual retribution and reward is the consequence of existance.
Traditional, pre-modern European philosophical tradition, (if we take the modern European philosophical era as starting around the time of the revolution of the 10th century, which introduced Roman Christianity and feudalism), takes the physical form as being an obstacal to the spiritual, which is etrnal. In this life, we individually struggle to establish and cement our reputations. Each of us has a path, in some traditions we select it, in others it is allocated. Once we trancend beyond the physical we will exist for all time with the reputation we had at death.
Can you see a pattern here?
Zenda.
Kate is a little stuck in a contemporary intellectual dichotomy, created by the conflicting claims of a small number of essentially politically motivated scientists who preach scientific absolutism.
The principal of scientific absolutism is its assumption that everything can be explained, absolutely, through science. That includes behaviour, feelings, emotions, even those experiences which we all have and which none of us, as humans, have the intellectual capacity to explain in words. That we don't have the answers is because we haven't found them yet, not that they don't exist.
It also works, strictly, with a principal of acedemic tradition. I can suggest an explaination, but unless I can demonstrate a sequence of intellectual steps, each made with regard for what came before, citing each as an acedemic, peer reviewed work, then my explaination is at best, a notion, at worst, a guess.
In itself, it is a good idea.
Scientific absolutism rejects, for example, aestheticism. Beauty, every aspect, can be explained by science. Unless it has, what there is is nothing more than a guess or a notion. The intuitive feelings of the artist or the designer can be demonstrated to have been accurate. But intuition is just an intelegent guess, or perhaps, a notion.
Scientific absolutism rejects as distractions, any such notions. That which is not known exists. But until it has been scientifically documented, even thinking about it, is a distraction
Now people like Kate and many others, actually find the implications of scientific absolutism a tab horrifying. But equally, they are reluctant to reject. So, they tend to reject what they feel safe to.
It's a sort of cultural fence sitting. And if you think about it, it probably the most sensible approach of all.
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