*** Read Part 1 ***
I decided that, by only making short posts (up to 1500 words) at the rate of one per week, readers might lose the thread (or lose interest) so I will now post longer ones that cover complete questions and answers. So this one is quite long, at over 1800 words.
The Bomb under the Bed
Here is the statement from Śaṅkara (translated by Alston in his book ‘Śaṅkara on the Creation’) that might raise doubts:
“The proposition to be proved is, ‘This whole duality seen by the imagined mind is itself nothing but mind’. The reason advanced is that when the mind is present, duality is also present (agreement, anvaya), and when the mind is not present, duality is not present (difference, vyatireka).” (Gauḍapāda kārikā 3.28-31)
Q: Using the Nyāya logic of anvaya-vyatireka to prove that the waking world is unreal because it disappears in deep-sleep does not seem remotely convincing. Yet Śaṅkara seems to go along with this, despite apparently being a master logician and philosopher. Are you able to explain this? If so, can you break down the argument into simple steps to show how it is possible to justify?
A: Your unease is entirely justified — and, importantly, it is shared by Śaṅkara himself, once we read him carefully and in context. The key to resolving the puzzle is to see that Śaṅkara is not offering a Nyāya-style ontological proof of unreality, even though he sometimes borrows Nyāya logical vocabulary such as anvaya–vyatireka. What he is doing is pedagogical and epistemological, not metaphysical in the Naiyāyika sense.
Let me unpack this step by step.
1. Why the naïve argument does look bad
The crude form of the argument goes like this:
- What is real must always exist.
- The waking world disappears in deep sleep.
- Therefore, the waking world is unreal.
As you rightly sense, this is not a valid Nyāya inference:
- Disappearance (abhāva) at one time does not imply non-existence absolutely.
- Pots disappear when broken; that does not make them illusory while they exist.
- Even Naiyāyikas accept intermittent existence.
Śaṅkara knew this perfectly well. If this were really his argument, it would be embarrassingly weak — and he would not have survived serious debate.
2. Śaṅkara’s real target: absolute reality (pāramārthika-sattā)
Śaṅkara is operating with a stricter criterion of reality than Nyāya.
For Nyāya:
“Real” = what exists and can be known by valid pramāṇas.
For Śaṅkara:
Real (satya) = that which never sublates, never ceases, never becomes an object of negation in any state.
This definition is explicit:
trikāla-abādhita-sattā
“That which is unsublated in all three times.”
So the question is not:
“Does the waking world exist sometimes?”
but:
“Does it survive every standpoint of experience?”
3. What anvaya–vyatireka is really being used for
Śaṅkara uses anvaya–vyatireka not to prove non-existence, but to prove dependence.
Let’s define the method carefully:
- Anvaya: When X is present, Y is present.
- Vyatireka: When X is absent, Y is absent.
This establishes invariable concomitance, not unreality by itself.
4. The key move: identifying the constant factor
Śaṅkara asks us to observe three states:
| State | World | Mind | Awareness |
| Waking | Present | Present | Present |
| Dream | Present (subtle) | Present | Present |
| Deep sleep | Absent | Absent | Present |
Now apply anvaya–vyatireka:
Step 1: World
- Anvaya: World appears when mind appears.
- Vyatireka: World disappears when mind disappears.
→ World depends on mind.
Step 2: Mind
- Anvaya: Mind appears when awareness appears.
- Vyatireka: Mind disappears, awareness does not.
→ Mind depends on awareness.
Step 3: Awareness
- Anvaya: Awareness is present in all states.
- Vyatireka: There is no state where awareness is absent.
→ Awareness is independent.
This is the crucial asymmetry.
5. Why deep sleep matters (and dreams alone are not enough)
Dreams already show that:
- A world can appear without physical objects.
But deep sleep shows something stronger:
- The complete absence of world-experience does not abolish the Self.
And this is not speculative — it is retrospectively known:
“I slept happily; I knew nothing.”
Śaṅkara insists that memory requires prior experience. Therefore, deep sleep was not a blank non-existence; it was an experience of undifferentiated awareness.
6. Where “unreality” actually enters
Śaṅkara never concludes: “The waking world does not exist.”
He concludes: “The waking world does not enjoy independent, self-established reality.”
Formally:
- That which depends on something else for its manifestation is mithyā.
- The world depends on mind and awareness.
- Awareness does not depend on the world.
- Therefore, the world is mithyā, not asat.
This is why he constantly contrasts:
- mithyā (dependent, sublatable)
- with tuccha (utterly nonexistent)
The waking world is sublated in deep sleep, just as dream is sublated in waking.
7. Why Śaṅkara tolerates Nyāya language but rejects Nyāya conclusions
Śaṅkara frequently:
- borrows Nyāya inferential tools,
- but rejects Nyāya metaphysics.
He explicitly says that logic is subordinate to śruti, and is only valid within experience (vyavahāra). Logic cannot establish Brahman directly; it can only remove false superimpositions.
So anvaya–vyatireka is being used as a diagnostic tool, not as a metaphysical proof.
8. Final compressed formulation
Śaṅkara’s real argument is this:
- Absolute reality must be present in all states without sublation.
- The waking world is absent in deep sleep.
- The Self is present in all states, including deep sleep.
- Therefore, the waking world does not qualify as absolutely real.
- What is experienced yet not absolutely real is mithyā.
- Mithyā does not mean “nonexistent”, but “dependent”.
9. Why this still feels unsatisfying (and why Śaṅkara accepts that)
Even after all this, Śaṅkara would agree with you:
Logic alone will never convince.
That is why he repeatedly says:
- Advaita is ultimately grasped by direct insight (aparokṣānubhava),
- logic only clears obstacles (pratibandha-nivṛtti).
So your discomfort is not a failure of understanding — it is precisely the point where Advaita says:
“Now logic has done its job. Look directly.”
Q: That is an excellent response and summary. But it still seems to fall short of empirical reasoning. Although awareness is always present, even in deep sleep, in order for this awareness to be aware of the world, it requires the assistance of the sense organs. And they are not ‘present’ in deep sleep. The argument I always use against those who put forward that argument is that, “OK. Next time you go to bed, I will put a bomb under the bed and arrange it so that it is triggered when you are in deep-sleep. We will then see whether or not the world still exists…”. Where is the fallacy in that argument?
A: This is a very sharp objection, and it goes straight to the fault-line between empirical realism and Śaṅkara’s epistemology. The bomb example is not a cheap rhetorical trick; it forces us to say exactly what is meant by “absence of the world in deep sleep,” and where empirical reasoning legitimately applies.
The short answer is: the fallacy is a category mistake about what “existence” is being tested, combined with a confusion between causal efficacy and independent reality. Let me unfold this carefully and without hand-waving.
1. First: your objection is empirically correct
From an empirical standpoint (vyāvahārika realism):
- The body and sense organs continue to exist in deep sleep.
- External objects continue to exist.
- A bomb would explode whether or not it is perceived.
- Therefore, the world does not cease to exist in deep sleep.
Śaṅkara does not deny this.
If he did, Advaita would collapse into absurdity and be easily refuted by everyday counterfactuals — exactly like your bomb example.
So if someone uses deep sleep to deny empirical existence, they are misrepresenting Śaṅkara.
2. What “absence of the world” actually means
When Śaṅkara says the world is “absent” (nāsti or anupalabdhi) in deep sleep, he does not mean: “The world is destroyed or annihilated.”
He means something far more specific: The world is absent as an experienced, objectified appearance.
This is crucial.
In deep sleep:
- There is no viṣaya (object).
- No viṣayī (knower as subject–object duality).
- No pramāṇa functioning.
So the claim is:
No world is manifest.
Not:
No world exists in the Nyāya sense.
Your bomb example tests causal continuity, not manifestation.
3. Why sense organs matter — but not in the way the objection assumes
You are absolutely right that: Awareness requires sense organs to be aware of the world. Śaṅkara agrees.
But that concession already gives him what he wants. Because it implies:
- Awareness itself is not intrinsically world-directed.
- World-appearance is conditional, mediated, and contingent.
- Therefore, the world is not self-revealing (svataḥ-siddha).
So the sense organs are not rescuing realism here — they are evidence of dependence.
4. The hidden assumption in the bomb argument
Your bomb argument relies on this premise:
“If something exists, its effects must occur regardless of whether it is known.”
That premise is perfectly valid within empirical realism.
But Śaṅkara is not asking: “Does the world have causal efficacy?”
He is asking: “Is the world self-established independently of consciousness?”
Causal efficacy ≠ ontological independence.
Dream fire burns dream skin.
That does not make dream fire absolutely real.
5. Why the bomb does not refute the argument
Let’s replay the bomb scenario carefully.
Case 1: The bomb explodes and kills the sleeper
- The explosion is never experienced by the sleeper.
- The event is known only in waking (by others, or hypothetically by inference).
From Advaita’s standpoint:
- This shows continuity of empirical causation, not absolute reality.
- Exactly the same structure applies to:
- dream causation remembered on waking,
- inferred causes never directly experienced.
Case 2: The sleeper survives and wakes
- The explosion is known after waking.
- It was not part of the deep-sleep world.
In neither case does the world appear in deep sleep.
So the test never touches the claim being made.
6. The precise fallacy: shifting the level of discourse
Formally, the fallacy is this:
Using vyāvahārika criteria (causal persistence) to refute a pāramārthika claim (dependence of manifestation).
Or more simply:
- The argument equivocates on “existence.”
| Sense of “existence” | Bomb tests it? |
| Empirical continuity | Yes |
| Manifest appearance | No |
| Independence from consciousness | No |
Śaṅkara never claims the first sense fails.
He claims only the latter two do.
7. Why deep sleep still matters philosophically
Deep sleep is not used to deny the world’s existence, but to show:
- The Self does not require the world to be present.
- The world requires specific conditions to appear.
- What is conditionally manifest is not absolute.
This is reinforced, not weakened, by the sense-organ point.
8. Why Śaṅkara does not accept empirical realism as final
Your bomb argument is unassailable if one assumes:
Reality = mind-independent causal structure.
Śaṅkara simply does not grant that assumption.
He asks:
“How is causal structure itself known?”
And the answer is always:
Through consciousness — directly or inferentially.
Thus causality never escapes the epistemic circle.
9. A sharper reformulation (that avoids misunderstanding)
The Advaitic claim is not:
“The world does not exist when unperceived.”
It is:
“The world has no reality apart from being perceived or knowable.”
The bomb can explode all it likes — its existence as meaningful, knowable reality is inseparable from consciousness.
10. Final verdict on your argument
Your bomb argument is:
- empirically sound,
- rhetorically devastating against naïve Advaita,
- but misses Śaṅkara’s target.
The fallacy is not logical incompetence, but category confusion:
testing ontological independence with empirical persistence.
Śaṅkara would calmly agree with your premises — and deny that they touch his conclusion.
*** End of Part 2 ***