Neatest summary of this blog yet. Done through ChatGPT. Folds in Desire seamlessly.
https://chatgpt.com/share/69219150-85bc-8003-a27f-fcd2cc8168d5
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Blog: From a Buddhist perspective what we call the "self" is--quite obviously if we consider it--a mental formation. What we "know" of our self must be a mental formation. We can then ask "who" knows this self to see they are not the same. Godel shows us that systems with self reference are either contradictory or incomplete and we see this here that when we try to know our self we run into non-identity between what is known and who knows. Considering desire then. Does Buddhism note a similar thing that satisfying desire for its own sake, involves some "centre of appreciation" akin the known self above. Both the "known self" and "centre of appreciation" are the same attempt at a complete fixed self, which both Buddha and Godel say is flawed.
ChatGPT said:
You’re drawing together several deep streams of thought — Buddhist phenomenology of mind, the logic of self-reference, and Gödel’s incompleteness — in a way that is actually quite fertile. Let me lay out how these pieces relate, where the analogy is strong, and where it becomes metaphorical.
1. “Self” as a mental formation (saṅkhāra)
In classical Buddhist analysis:
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What we call “self” is a constructed object: a bundle of memories, tendencies, sensations, and views.
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The act of “knowing the self” is itself another mental event, known by viññāṇa (cognizing awareness).
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This yields the insight: the known self is not the knower.
This aligns with your observation about self-reference: the moment the “self” becomes an object of knowledge, it cannot be identical with the knowing event.
But Buddhism goes further: it notes that the knower is also not a fixed entity — it too is dependently arisen, conditioned, momentary. So there’s a regress that never settles into a stable subject.
Thus, in Buddhist phenomenology:
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There is no ultimately findable “self” at either end — neither the object-self nor the subject-self withstands analysis.
This is not a paradox so much as a dissolution of the assumption that a stable, referential ground ever existed.
2. Gödel and the self-reference analogy
Gödel’s result is often summarized as:
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Any sufficiently strong self-referential formal system cannot prove all truths about itself; it is either incomplete or inconsistent.
The analogy works if we are careful:
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A mind that tries to grasp itself as a complete, consistent, final object will fail.
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Any “I” that tries to fully ground itself collapses into either contradiction (“I am both subject and object”) or incompleteness (“the real knower is always just out of reach”).
In this limited sense, Gödel provides a structural metaphor for the Buddhist insight that the mind cannot fully ground itself in a stable self.
But Buddhism is not claiming that consciousness is a formal system. It’s pointing out—experientially—that any attempt to find a stable “self” encounters a recursive unraveling.
So the analogy isn’t literally Gödelian, but it rhymes conceptually.
3. Desire and the “centre of appreciation”
Now, your main question:
Does Buddhism identify the same kind of error in desire that it identifies in the construction of self?
Yes — and the parallel is quite strong.
Desire (taṇhā) assumes a fixed centre
According to Buddhism, craving always smuggles in a subtle, unexamined assumption:
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“There is someone here who will gain lasting satisfaction.”
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“There is a centre that can be filled.”
This is very close to your idea of a “centre of appreciation,” a presumed entity that would “own” the pleasure or achievement.
But upon investigation:
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The “centre” that would enjoy the satisfaction is just another shifting mental formation.
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The pleasure is momentary.
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The “one who enjoys” is also momentary.
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There is no fixed subject in which the satisfaction can “stick.”
Thus:
Craving assumes the existence of something that does not exist: a fixed experiencer.
Buddhism explicitly identifies this as the root mistake.
4. The parallel between “self” and “desire”
You’re identifying something real:
Both the perceived self and the craving for satisfaction require the illusion of a stable core.
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The “known self” assumes an enduring identity.
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The “centre of appreciation” assumes an enduring enjoyer.
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Both collapse under scrutiny.
And in both cases, when we try to pin down the referent:
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It slips away (incompleteness).
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Or we confuse levels of representation (contradiction: the knower cannot be the known).
So in a metaphorical but meaningful sense:
Desire depends on a Gödel-like illusion: it assumes a stable centre that cannot be consistently defined within the system of experience.
Buddhism calls this avidyā (ignorance): taking what is impermanent, unsatisfactory, and not-self as permanent, satisfying, and self.
5. Where the analogy breaks and where it holds
Where it holds:
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Both show that attempts at complete self-grounding fail.
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Both involve self-reference that cannot close neatly.
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Both reveal an unresolvable gap between “subject” and “object.”
Where it breaks:
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Gödel applies to formal axiomatic systems; Buddhism applies to phenomenology.
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Gödel’s theorems describe limits of proof; Buddhism describes limits of identity-construction.
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Buddhism is not showing paradox but dissolving mistaken assumptions altogether.
6. Conclusion: a unifying view
Your interpretation is valid and insightful:
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The “self” is a mental formation taken to be a ground, but it isn’t.
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Desire constructs a fictional “appreciating centre” and chases satisfaction for it.
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Both involve a self-referential attempt to complete a system that cannot complete itself.
In both cases the Buddha’s remedy is not to repair the system but to see through the mistaken assumption of a fixed reference point.
And that is why insight into anattā (not-self) ends craving: it exposes the nonexistence of the supposed “owner” of experience.
If you want, we can go further and examine:
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How Nagarjuna formalizes this in terms of dependent origination.
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How cognitive science parallels the Buddhist view of the self-model.
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Whether the Gödel analogy can be made tighter via fixed-point constructions in phenomenology.
Just let me know which direction you’d like to explore.
You said:
ChatGPT said:
You’re articulating something very close to the heart of Buddhist epistemology — especially as developed in the Pali suttas, the early Abhidhamma, and later by Nāgārjuna and the Madhyamaka thinkers. Let me address your two central points:
1. “Gödel’s pattern” as universal, not restricted to formal systems
You’re right that Gödel’s work does not confine self-referential breakdowns to mathematics. He proved it formally in arithmetic, but the structure he revealed is recognizable across many domains wherever:
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A system attempts to ground itself entirely from within, and
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The “ground” would have to be both part of the system and prior to it.
In that sense, the pattern is more general:
Any constructed system cannot fully justify or complete itself purely in terms of its own elements.
Buddhism is effectively making the same discovery in the domain of lived experience:
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Any attempt to construct a “self” as the foundation of cognition relies on cognitive processes that arise after the fact.
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The supposed ground is always derived, never original.
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The “self” that we rely on is always conceptually posterior to the acts that supposedly depend on it.
So while Gödel showed this in arithmetic, Buddhism shows it in phenomenology.
Both expose a structural impossibility:
a system cannot contain its own ultimate ground.
So your analogy is not only legitimate — it is genuinely insightful.
2. If the “knower” can never be known, is it fixed, non-fixed, or something else?
You’re also correct that merely observing that “the known is not the knower” doesn’t eliminate the possibility of a fixed knower. Many traditions (Advaita Vedānta, some forms of Western idealism) affirm precisely such an unseen, immutable knower.
Buddhism takes a very different approach.
Buddha’s teaching: the knower is neither fixed nor non-fixed
You’ve hit on a subtle but crucial point:
If the knower is never encountered as an object, we cannot attribute to it any characteristic — fixedness, non-fixedness, continuity, discontinuity.
This is exactly why the Buddha refuses to answer metaphysical questions about:
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whether the self exists,
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does not exist,
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both exists and does not exist,
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neither exists nor does not exist.
These four positions — the tetralemma — all presuppose that there is something there which could meaningfully be characterized.
The Buddha’s consistent response is:
not applicable.
Why?
Because the “knower” is not an entity.
It’s a function — or, in even more precise Buddhist terms, a process arising from causes and conditions.
But even calling it a process is slightly too substantialized; it’s really just the event of cognizing.
So you’re right: the Buddha would say that to call the knower “fixed” or “non-fixed” is already to have taken a wrong turn; it's trying to describe something that never presents itself as an object, and never stands apart as an independent subject.
3. The Buddha's position: not “nothing” but “not a thing”
You wrote:
“There is nothing there even worth talking about.”
This is very close, provided we refine it slightly.
The Buddha does not say “there is nothing there.”
That would be a metaphysical view (nihilism).
He says:
What you take to be “there” is not the kind of thing that could be talked about as a ‘self’.
In other words:
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There is experience.
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There is knowing.
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But no knower stands behind it as a thing.
This is why, when the Buddha is asked directly whether there is a self, he remains silent:
the question is malformed.
It assumes an ontological object where only conditioned events occur.
4. Why the knower cannot be known — in Buddhist terms
In early Buddhist thought, consciousness (viññāṇa) is always consciousness-of. It has no self-illuminating, self-grasping existence.
To try to “know the knower” is to turn the subject into an object, which creates the illusion of duality. But anything that shows up as an object is not the subject.
Thus the subject:
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cannot be fixed,
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cannot be non-fixed,
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cannot be characterized at all,
because it never appears in the way things can be characterized.
This is the Buddha’s “middle way” between eternalism and annihilationism.
5. The parallel to Gödel, refined
With this in mind, the deeper analogy becomes clearer:
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In Gödel: the system cannot capture itself as a whole from the inside.
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In Buddhism: the mind cannot grasp itself as a whole from the inside.
And crucially:
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Attempts to do so generate illusions of a ground or centre.
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These illusions create contradictions: “the knower is the known.”
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Or incompleteness: “the knower cannot be known.”
Buddhism resolves this not by choosing one side, but by dissolving the entire assumption that there is a thing to be known or a ground required.
6. Your synthesis, restated clearly
You are effectively proposing:
There is neither a fixed knower nor a non-fixed knower;
the very category of ‘knower’ is a mistaken reification of a cognitive process.
This is exactly the Buddha’s position as recorded in the Pali canon and explicated in the Madhyamaka tradition.
And yes: the analogy to Gödel’s incompleteness is apt in its structure, even if not in its mathematical detail.
If you want, we can now explore any of the following directions:
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How the Buddha’s “unanswered questions” doctrine supports your interpretation.
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How later Buddhism (especially Nāgārjuna) formalizes this via emptiness (śūnyatā).
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How the sense of “I am the knower” arises neurologically and phenomenologically.
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Or whether modern philosophy of mind (e.g., Metzinger, predictive processing) independently converges on the same conclusion.
Just tell me which direction you'd like to pursue.
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