The Rational Basis of Buddhist Philosophy

"It is natural that doubt should arise in your minds.

I tell you not to believe merely because it has been handed down by tradition, or because it had been said by some great personage in the past, or because it is commonly believed, or because others have told it to you, or even because I myself have said it.
  
But whatever you are asked to believe, ask yourself whether it is true in the light of your experience, whether it is in conformity with reason and good principles and whether it is conducive to the highest good and welfare of all beings, and only if it passes this test, should you accept it and act in accordance with it."

- The Buddha


Fundamentals
Buddhism is founded on two fundamental observations, from which the rest of the philosophy is derived. These two basic premises are:

(i) The underlying nature of reality is process and change, rather than stable entities.

(ii) Processes can be divided into two categories -  mental processes and physical/mechanistic processes (nama and rupa) .

Although mental processes and physical processes interact, mental processes are not reducible to physical processes.

According to Buddhism, the basis of reality consists of ever-changing processes rather than static ‘things’.  If any ‘thing’ is analysed in enough depth, and observed over a long enough timescale, it can be seen to be a stage of a dynamic process, rather than a static, stable thing-in-itself. 

This becomes obvious when we remember that the universe is itself a process (a continuing  expansion from the Big Bang), and so all that it contains are subprocesses of the whole.


The Rationality of Buddhism
Of course most religions don't like having their basic tenets subjected to searching analysis, and Jihadism has abandoned reason altogether, to the extent that you're likely to get your head chopped off for being too rational.
But Buddhism is different. In the Kalama Sutra, Buddha said that all religious teachings, including his own should...

(1) Not be believed on the basis of religious authority, or 'holy' books, or family/tribal tradition, or even coercion and intimidation by the mob.

BUT INSTEAD ONE SHOULD

(2) Test the methodology by personal experience. Does it do what it says on the box?

(3) Is the philosophy rational? Or does it require you to believe six impossible things before breakfast?

(4) Judge the tree by its fruits. Is it beneficial, or does it tell you to act against your conscience and 'The Golden Rule'.

 
Reason versus revelation
One advantage of establishing a rational basis for Buddhism is that it gives Buddhism an 'intellectual respectability' at a time when the intellectual prestige of other religions is in steep decline, due to increasing obscurantism, which takes variety of forms varying from creationist anti-science to outright terrorism.

This 'intellectual respectability' also may help to prevent Buddhism being hit by collateral damage from increasing prejudice against all religions resulting from jihadist aggression.

Most religions contain some 'revealed doctrines' or 'dogmas', which were revealed long ago to one person or a few people, and then not to any others.

In all religions other than Buddhism, these ancient, unprovable, unrepeatable revelations are fundamental articles of faith on which the rest of the belief-system is constructed.

In contrast, Buddhism's fundamental doctrines are accessible to reason and investigation in terms of shared, repeatable, reproducible experience... full article


 

Life after death: mental processes continue after brain processes shut down

From The Telegraph 

First hint of 'life after death' in biggest ever scientific study
"Southampton University scientists have found evidence that awareness can continue for at least several minutes after clinical death which was previously thought impossible.

...The largest ever medical study into near-death and out-of-body experiences has discovered that some awareness may continue even after the brain has shut down completely.

It is a controversial subject which has, until recently, been treated with widespread scepticism.

But scientists at the University of Southampton have spent four years examining more than 2,000 people who suffered cardiac arrests at 15 hospitals in the UK, US and Austria.

And they found that nearly 40 per cent of people who survived described some kind of ‘awareness’ during the time when they were clinically dead before their hearts were restarted.

 One man even recalled leaving his body entirely and watching his resuscitation from the corner of the room.

Despite being unconscious and ‘dead’ for three minutes, the 57-year-old social worker from Southampton, recounted the actions of the nursing staff in detail and described the sound of the machines.

“We know the brain can’t function when the heart has stopped beating,” said Dr Sam Parnia, a former research fellow at Southampton University, now at the State University of New York, who led the study.

“But in this case, conscious awareness appears to have continued for up to three minutes into the period when the heart wasn’t beating, even though the brain typically shuts down within 20-30 seconds after the heart has stopped.

“The man described everything that had happened in the room, but importantly, he heard two bleeps from a machine that makes a noise at three minute intervals. So we could time how long the experienced lasted for.

“He seemed very credible and everything that he said had happened to him had actually happened.”

Of 2060 cardiac arrest patients studied, 330 survived and 140 said they had experienced some kind of awareness while being resuscitated.

Although many could not recall specific details, some themes emerged. One in five said they had felt an unusual sense of peacefulness while nearly one third said time had slowed down or speeded up.

Some recalled seeing a bright light; a golden flash or the Sun shining. Others recounted feelings of fear or drowning or being dragged through deep water. 13 per cent said they had felt separated from their bodies and the same number said their sensed had been heightened...
 

Mental processes don't depend on mechanistic processes
What this study demonstrates is that there are two kinds of processes at work in our lives: mechanistic and mental. 

Mechanistic processes explain the working of all machines including computers, and all the classical laws of science including biology, chemistry, and physics. The brain is a physical machine no different in principle from a computer, and carries out mechanistic processes.  However mental processes are completely different.

Mental processes consist of irreducible aspects of consciousness that have no mechanistic explanation, for example qualia (qualitative experiences such as pleasure and pain) and intentionality or aboutness (the power of minds to be about, to represent, experience, cognise or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs).    

When mechanistic processes shut down, mental processes can still continue.

Read more at Buddhist Philosophy

 

Jay Garfield on Buddhist Philosophy in the West

Dead White Males

take precedence over
 

Dead Brown Males

A year ago I blogged on whether Buddhist philosophy is neglected and discriminated against in the West.

Jay Garfield has recently given an interview including this topic at 3am Magazine
 
Here are a few excerpts:
3:AM: What attracted you to Madhyamika philosophy in the first place and what are the distinctive positions of this philosophy?

JLG: Well, just as I fell in love with Hume and Wittgenstein as an undergraduate, I fell in love with Nāgārjuna when I encountered his work. The clarity of philosophical vision, the rigour of analysis and the profound exploration of the most fundamental questions of metaphysics impressed me enormously. The radical attack on essence and on foundations resonated with ideas from Hume, Wittgenstein and Sellars, and the rich commentarial tradition provided a hermeneutical device for explicating those ideas. I also, I must say, found my new Tibetan colleagues to be such wonderful teachers and collaborators that the sheer joy of working in that milieu was attractive.

3:AM: You say that at the time of moving to Buddhist philosophy many of the philosophers and cognitive scientists working in philosophy of mind and so forth were dubious about the merits of your doing this. Has this attitude changed over the years so that it is no longer seen as an aberration, or is it still a problem?

JLG: It has. I have been gratified to see how many Western philosophers now at least take non-Western philosophy, including Buddhist philosophy, seriously. An increasing number are reading and discussing non-Western philosophy; the APA now often includes a few panels on non-Western philosophy – again, including Buddhist philosophy – on its program; an increasing number of departments seek philosophers who can teach non-Western philosophy in their departments, or cross-list courses in Religion departments on Buddhist or other non-Western philosophical traditions. Just a few months ago. Christian Coseru, Evan Thompson and I directed an NEH summer institute on ‘Consciousness in a Cross-Cultural Perspective’ in which we integrated Buddhist and Western perspectives. That institute attracted as participants and as faculty a number of philosophers whose work is almost entirely in the Western tradition who were happy to take seriously Buddhist material.

So there has been a lot of progress. But there is also a long way to go. People in our profession are still happy to treat Western philosophy as the “core” of the discipline, and as the umarked case. So, for instance, a course that addresses only classical Greek philosophy can be comfortably titled “Ancient Philosophy,” not “Ancient Western Philosophy,” and a course in metaphysics can be counted on to ignore all non-Western metaphysics. A course in Indian philosophy is not another course in the history of PHILOSOPHY, but is part of the non-Western curriculum. And many of the major journals in our field will not even seriously consider submissions that address non-Western literature. Until the literature, curriculum, professional meetings and mode of engagement with the literature is as diverse as the world of philosophy itself, there is a lot of work to do. And that work is a matter of both intellectual and moral imperative. It is simply irrational to ignore most of world philosophy in the pursuit of truth, and immoral to relegate any literature not written by Europeans as somehow beneath our dignity to read....

Jay Garfield

 "...I think that comparative philosophy was a very important enterprise. The philosopher who coined that phrase in 1899 was Bajendranath Seal of Calcutta University, who argued that to compare two philosophical systems was to “treat them as of coordinate rank.” That was a major step, inviting Western philosophers to take Indian and other non-Western traditions seriously as philosophy, as opposed to “native religious traditions.” Western philosophers gained access to Asian and African traditions initially by noting similarities and differences. But that, as A.C. Mukerji, of Allahabad, was to note in 1932, is not to do philosophy, but is at best a preparation. To take philosophy seriously is to engage with it philosophically. We take Aristotle seriously not when we write about his ideas, but when we take his ideas as part of our discussions. Similarly, we take Nāgārjuna seriously not when we talk about how similar his ideas are to Hume’s, but when we take him as an interlocutor.

So, to take one of the examples you suggest, Buddhist philosophers in both the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra traditions argue that the nature of reality is in the end inexpressible. The question of whether or not the nature of reality is ineffible is, of course, a matter of debate in Western philosophy. But some of the arguments offered in the Buddhist world are different from those offered in the West, for instance those that rely on the engagement of language and thought with universals, which in turn, are argued to be unreal and deceptive.

3:AM: One of the issues you raise is the ethics of approaches to intellectual and cultural traditions less powerful and less respected than the Western ones. How should we think about this?

JLG: Easy. Suppose that someone argued that the philosophical curriculum in their college could not include any texts by women, because there are just so many important books by men, and not enough time to address all of them, let alone to go on to read stuff by women, or that the faculty is not expert in women’s philosophy. He would be howled down not on the grounds that there are indeed not too many books by guys, but that given a history of sexism, it is immoral as well as irrational to ignore the contributions of women in the curriculum. But people get away with saying that their department can’t offer courses that address non-Western philosophy because they are struggling to cover the “core,” that students have so much Western philosophy to learn that they don’t have time to read the non-Western stuff, and that there are no specialists in non-Western philosophy in the department. In the wake of colonialism and in the context of racism, the only legitimate response is to howl them down...

"... I think that parochialism is built into many kinds of nationalism and educational institutions in which children are brought up to treat their own culture as the unmarked case, and to mark the products of other culture. In the USA, we learn “art history” as Western art history, and the history of Asian, or African art is a special case; we learn politics by examining our own government system, and consider other systems special cases, and the same is true of philosophy. And that parochialism is matched by similar parochialisms every place else. It is a bad idea. Each of us ends up thinking that we grow up at the Middle Pole, and that while there is diversity in the world, it is all deviations from normal – our way or doing things. The goal of education should be to dismantle the Middle Pole view, not to reinforce it in the name of the need for a grounding in one’s own civilisation..."

Read the full article here


Related Articles

Interest in Buddhism surges at Top Universities Worldwide

Is Buddhist Philosophy Neglected and Discriminated against in the West?

Buddhism leads approval poll in France 

Rational Buddhism


 

Buddhism, Rationalism and Empiricism - The Kalama Challenge

The Sleep of Reason brings forth Monsters

The Kalama people of India had many holy men trying to convert them by claiming their own doctrines were correct, and everybody else was wrong.

One day the Buddha turned up, and naturally the Kalamas asked him why they should believe his teachings rather than all the cult leaders, charlatans and false prophets whom they had already grown weary of.

The Buddha replied:

"It is natural that doubt should arise in your minds.

I tell you not to believe merely because it has been handed down by tradition, or because it had been said by some great personage in the past, or because it is commonly believed, or because others have told it to you, or even because I myself have said it.

But whatever you are asked to believe, ask yourself whether it is true in the light of your experience, whether it is in conformity with reason and good principles and whether it is conducive to the highest good and welfare of all beings, and only if it passes this test, should you accept it and act in accordance with it." - Kalama Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya.

So the Buddha is making a statement which is found in no other religion. Unlike all other religious leaders he is not claiming a hotline to God, a personal, non-reproducible revelation which appears to him and no-one else.

He is saying:

(1) Do not believe anything on the basis of religious authority, or 'holy' books, or family/tribal tradition, or even coercion and intimidation by the mob.

BUT

(2) Test the methodology against your own experience. Does it do what it says on the box?

(3) Is the philosophy rational? Or does it require you to believe six impossible things before breakfast?

(4) Judge the tree by its fruits. Is it beneficial, or does it tell you to act against your conscience and 'The Golden Rule'.

The Kalama challenge

But the Buddha was also implying something else, which he has perhaps left as a terma ( hidden teaching-challenge) for our own beleaguered civilisation, where scientific rationalism is fighting a rearguard action against the forces of religious fanaticism, irrationalism and barbarism.

Buddha is implying that it is possible to construct much (most? all?) of Buddhist doctrine by the application of reason and empiricism (experiment/experience) which are accessible to everyone, without the need for special revelation.

The empirical aspect consists of physical experiments which were impossible in Buddha's time, as well as introspective thought-experiments and meditational techniques which produce reproducible mental effects when employed by different people.

So that's the challenge. Given our modern understanding of physics, psychology, biology and information science, how much of the Dharma can we derive and reconstruct as a system without resorting to faith or authority - to quote Buddha "even because I myself have said it"?

More at Rational Buddhism 

- Sean Robsville
 

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Buddhism Subject Index

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Quantum Buddhism

Buddhism and Quantum Physics

Experiments in quantum physics seem to demonstrate the need for an observer to be present to make potentialities become real.

Quantum physics is an outstandingly successful  mathematical description of the behavior of matter and energy at the level of fundamental particles. No discrepancy of any kind between the predictions of quantum theory and experimental observation has ever been found [PENROSE 1990a].

It should be noted that the value of a scientific theory is normally judged by its predictive rather than descriptive power. Theories which are merely descriptive rather than testably predictive have little or no scientific value.

It is important to emphasise that the mathematical equations of quantum physics do not describe actual existence - they predict the potential for existence. Working out the equations of quantum mechanics for a system composed of fundamental particles produces a range of potential locations, values and attributes of the particles which evolve and change with time. But for any system only one of these potential states can become real, and - this is the revolutionary finding of quantum physics - what forces the range of the potentials to assume one value is the act of observation. Matter and energy are not in themselves phenomena, and do not become phenomena until they are observed. The following experiments give some feel for the interaction of mind with matter at the fundamental level of existence:


The two slit paradox
The two slit experiment contains a device (the emitter) which strips the electrons off atoms and fires them at a screen. The screen is covered with thousands of tiny dots of phosphor (like a TV screen) which glow when an electron hits them. If we wish to obtain a permanent record of the results of the experiment we can place a sheet of photographic paper on the back of the screen.



Single slit in top position - intensity of glow due to electrons

We place a sheet of foil, which stops the electrons, between the emitter and the screen. The sheet has a very thin slit in it just above the level of the emitter. Looking at the screen we see what we might expect - most of the screen is dark but there is a glowing band behind the slit where the electrons are getting through and hitting the phosphorescent dots. The glowing band, slit and emitter are all in direct line of sight.


There is nothing remarkable about this. The main area of the foil is casting an 'electron shadow' with a thin stream of electrons passing through the slit. As the effects of gravity are negligible and there are no strong magnetic or electric fields, we would expect the electrons to travel in a straight line, and this indeed appears to be what happens.



Single slit in bottom position - intensity of glow due to electrons

We replace the first sheet of foil with another sheet which has a very thin slit just below the level of the emitter. Looking at the screen we see what we might expect, which is almost the same as we saw for the first slit. Most of the screen is dark but there is a   glowing band behind the slit where the electrons are getting through and hitting the phosphorescent dots. As the glowing band, slit and emitter are all in direct line of sight the band is at a slightly lower position than for the first slit.



Both slits with a stream of particles - expected results

We now replace the sheet of foil with one containing two slits, of exactly the same size and exactly the same positions as before. Common-sense tells us that we should see an additive effect of the two individual slits. There should be two glowing bands, one at each of the previous positions.

But common-sense is wrong - this doesn't happen!

...

Both slits with a stream of particles - actual results

Instead we see a number of glowing bands at different positions from those seen with either of the two individual slits.  Regions which were dark in both previous experiments have become light, and vice versa. In fact the electrons are showing interference effects, which are typical of waves. Waves which converge after travelling two different paths show a pattern of high energies at places where troughs and peaks converge simultaneously, and zero energies where troughs coincide with and cancel peaks.

Stretching common-sense a little we conclude that introducing the second slit has somehow forced the electrons to behave as waves rather than particles.

One of the characteristics of waves is that they spread out. But if we observe the screen closely we notice that the glow isn't spread out. Individual dots are still momentarily glowing while their neighbours may remain dark. The electrons are arriving as particles. So we may conclude that the electrons are travelling as waves, and interfering with one another, but as soon as they meet a detector they immediately resume particle behavior.


Two slits, one particle at a time
One obvious way to get rid of the interference effects is to ensure that only one electron is travelling at any one time. If we do this then each electron will have an unobstructed run and, over the course of time we should see a pattern build up which is the same as for two single slits added together.

To do this we reduce the power of the emitter so that it does not release an electron until the previous one has hit the screen, so removing any possibility of interference. We could actually sit and watch each individual electron arrive at the screen but this would be time consuming. Instead we stick the photographic paper on the screen and leave it for a while.

But when we develop the photographic paper, we find the same interference pattern that we saw when many electrons were passing through the apparatus simultaneously! The same areas which were dark in the two slit experiment remain dark, despite their being light in the single slit experiment.

So our original ideas of electrons interfering with one another by cancelling and reinforcing is wrong. Each electron cancels and reinforces itself when two slits are open, but does not do so when only one slit is open. The only logical explanation left is that a single electron must split and pass through both slits simultaneously. We can install detectors behind the slits to confirm this.

Check both slits
We place extremely sensitive particle detectors behind each slit and then set the emitter to release electrons singly. We wait to observe the simultaneous arrival of two bits of electrons at both particles detectors. And we wait ... and wait ... and wait. But all we ever see is that either one particle detector registers an electron or the other does, but never both simultaneously. Each electron travels through either one slit or the other.

So if it does not traverse both routes, how does the electron 'know' that the other slit is present. Well obviously a thing as simple as an electron can't know anything. And yet knowledge of the existence of a second slit is involved at the deepest level of these series of experiments. Knowledge of possibilities rather than any actual particle trajectory , or other physical event, seems to be determining the properties of material objects. But if the electron has no knowledge of its environment, then the only other place where such knowledge could reside is in the mind of the observer. Therefore the observer's mind is in some way determining the outcome of the observations.


If the experimenter's observational set-up imputes the concept 'wave', then he will see wave-like behaviour. If he imputes the concept 'particle' then he will see particle-like behaviour. Even placing a particle detector behind only one of the slits destroys the interference pattern, because the experimenter has in so doing imputed the concept 'particles' over the electrons despite both slits remaining open and one route being unobstructed. More detailed descriptions of the two-slit paradox are given in The Emperor's New Mind by Roger Penrose [PENROSE 1990b ] and Where Does the Weirdness Go? by David Lindley [LINDLEY 1997a].


Stern and Gerlach's magnets
One of the earliest demonstrations that the choice of observation imputes qualities on a quantum system (rather than merely observes what is already there) is due to Stern and Gerlach.

Many subatomic particles are tiny magnets with north and south poles of equal strength. If we obtain a stream of particles from a random source, such as a hot wire, then we would expect them to be randomly aligned. The north south axis might run up-to-down, left-to-right, back-to-front or vice versa or any intermediate orientation. In fact, we would expect only a small proportion to by aligned exactly up/down, the vast majority will be somewhere in between.

Stern and Gerlach set up a special type of magnetic field where the strength of the poles declines rapidly with distance. In certain areas of the magnetic field this would deflect the particles according to their orientation.

The mechanism is as follows: Assume that particles pass by the equipment's north pole which is at the top. A particle with its north pole facing directly upwards would be expected to be deflected strongly downwards because the repulsion due to its north pole would be stronger than the attraction due to its south pole (because the particle's south pole is further away from the apparatus' north pole and so in a weaker part of the field). Conversely a particle with its south pole upwards would be expected to be deflected upwards.

However the vast majority of particles would not be aligned directly upwards or downwards but somewhere in between. These would be deflected less strongly, and the large number aligned more or less a right angles to the field would undergo very little deflection at all .



Stern Gerlach - expected results

If we examined the beam after passing through the magnetic field (by placing a photographic screen in the way) we would expect it to have assumed an elongated   shape, with the brightest areas (most particles ) being in the central undeflected area. THIS DOES NOT OCCUR!




Stern Gerlach - actual results

All particles are deflected either equally upwards or equally downwards in a 50:50 ratio. There are no intermediate positions.


We are therefore left with three possible conclusions:

(1) The apparatus somehow forces the particles to align parallel to its magnetic field before it deflects them.
            OR

(2) The particles are not emitted with random orientation but are produced either up or down.
            OR

(3) The particles have no orientation until it is observed. The act of observation produces the orientation.

Alternative (1) - forced alignment - can be rejected because there is no known two-step mechanism whereby a magnetic field would wait until it had aligned all the miniature magnets before it decided to turn on the deflection. Also, progressively weakening and shortening the magnetic field would be expected to allow some particles to escape the alignment process. But this does not happen. Particles are, within the limits of experimental measurement, all deflected to exactly the same extent either up or down.

Alternative (2) - non random orientation - can be disproved by observing what happens when the incoming beam is left unchanged and the the Stern-Gerlach magnet is rotated through 90 degrees. The particles are then either deflected left or right with nothing in between. In fact the orientation is totally arbitrary. If the Stern Gerlach magnets are aligned at orientations corresponding to any axis (one o'clock/seven o'clock or two o'clock/eight o'clock) etc then the original beam will   split into two beams with all particles showing an equal deflection towards the one'clock or seven o'clock position.

So we are left with alternative (3) - the orientation has no inherent existence. The attribute of orientation is utterly meaningless in the absence of an observer. The meaning of the orientation is projected by the observer's mind. If the observer projects the up/down axis of orientation on a stream of particles then that is the way that they will all be sorted. If any other direction is chosen then they will be sorted along that axis. Quantum theory does not appear to allow any fundamental distinction between the mind of the observer and what is being observed.

Full details of the Stern-Gerlach experiments are given in Where Does the Weirdness Go? by David Lindley [LINDLEY 1997b]



Spooky action at a distance - EPR
One of the most vivid illustrations of the interactions of the mind of the observer with a quantum system is given by EPR - the 'Einstein Podolsky Rosen Paradox', or 'Spooky action at a distance' as it is sometimes known. The experimental evidence seems to show that the observer's mind goes to its object unobstructedly and instantaneously, for example through ten kilometres of intervening Geneva city-scape (walls, buildings, railway stations, the lot!) at speeds exceeding that of light.

Nor does the effect diminish with distance. According to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, the 'spooky action' can affect a particle instantaneously whether it is a metre away from the observer or halfway across the universe.

The observation of 'spooky action' relies on the concept of entanglement. It is possible to obtain pairs of fundamental particles where it is known that their properties will always cancel one another out, even when those properties have not been defined. These pairs are said to be 'entangled' . However the entanglement is conceptual rather than physical and the particles are free to move far apart.

Consider an experiment where we create an entangled pair of magnetic particles. Their polar alignments will always be opposite. We allow them to move far apart. We then place a Stern-Gerlach magnet in the path of one of the particles and observe what happens when it passes through. If it is defected upwards then, according to the 'spooky action' hypothesis, its distant partner would be deflected downwards by a similar magnet. By making the nearby observation we have instantaneously defined the properties of the distant particle.

Note that this is not the same thing as saying 'The near particle was always up but we didn't know until we decided to observe it. So the distant particle must always have been down even though we didn't know at the the time.'

The reason the statement above is incompatible with quantum theory is that we could have equally well decided to align the Stern-Gerlach magnet on a left/right axis instead of up/down. In which case we would have fixed the near particle as, say, left-deflected and the distant particle would instantaneously be known to be right-deflected.

For many years both theoretical and technical difficulties stood in the way of determining whether 'spooky action' does indeed take place. However as a result of the theoretical work of John Bell and the ingenious experimental designs of Alain Aspect strong evidence was obtained that the effect occurred over distances of a few metres. The act of making a decision of what attributes of one member of an entangled pair were to be observed immediately determined what could be observed of the other member.

Since then 'spooky action' has been demonstrated over increasing distances. The current record is 10 km obtained by Nicolas Gisin and his team at the University of Geneva [BUCHANAN 1997]. Starting from near Geneva railway station they sent entangled photons along optical fibres through the city to destinations separated by 10km. They showed that observing the state of one member of the pair instantaneously determined the state of the other.



Quantum sunyata
Basically, what quantum theory says is that fundamental particles are empty of inherent existence and exist in an undefined state of potentialities. They have no inherent existence from their own side and do not become 'real' until a mind interacts with them and gives them meaning. Whenever and wherever there is no mind there is no meaning and no reality. This is a similar conclusion to the Mahayana Buddhist teachings on sunyata.

The ultimate manifestation of quantum sunyata is when quantum theory is applied to the entire universe. According to some cosmologists, the universe began as a quantum fluctuation in the limitless Void (Hartle-Hawking hypothesis). The universe remained as a huge quantum superposition of all possible states until the first primordial mind observed it, causing it to collapse into one actuality. This fascinating theory is discussed in The Participatory Anthropic Principle.

- Sean Robsville


REFS

[LINDLEY 1997a] Lindley, David, Where does the Weirdness Go? page 39ff. (London: Vintage 1997, ISBN 0 09 974751 0 )

[LINDLEY 1997b] ibid, page 8 ff.

[BUCHANAN 1997] Buchanan, Mark , Light's Spooky Connections Set Distance Record , New Scientist, 28 June 1997, p 16.

[PENROSE 1990a] Penrose, Roger, The Emperor's New Mind, page 385 (London: Vintage, 1990, ISBN 0 09 977170 5)

[PENROSE 1990b] ibid page 299ff}
.

Related articles

Buddhism, Quantum Physics and Mind

Quantum Buddhism - Buddhist Particle Physics

General background at Buddhist Philosophy
  
 

Reductionism and Buddhist Philosophy

The pseudo-scientific doctrine of Physical Reductionism - that life has no spiritual dimension - is sometimes openly stated, but often just accepted as the default physicalist view.

Reductionism states that:

• The mind is nothing but the brain.
• The brain is nothing but a biological system.
• Biological systems are nothing but chemical interactions.
• Chemical interactions are nothing but physical interactions.
• Therefore the mind is nothing but a set of physical interactions.

From the Materialist standpoint this hierarchy exists as bottom-up 'objective reality'. If you removed the top level then the rest of the structure would be unaffected.

However, from a Buddhist standpoint, the reductionist argument is flawed at the top ('The Hard Problem'). It is flawed at the bottom (quantum-mind interactions and the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics), it is flawed in the middle (the problem of emergence), and it is flawed ontologically (There is no inherently-existent objective reality. Mother nature doesn't make statements, she only answers questions, and the questioner is part of the system).

Buddhism and 'The Hard Problem'
The 'Hard Problem' is that there is no explanation of how neurological activity could turn into qualitative subjective experience. Not only is there no explanation, but no one has any idea of what such an explanation would look like.

Even worse (for the reductionists) there's a growing suspicion that The Hard Problem is in fact what's known as a `category error' or 'category mistake'. In other words, no explanation of subjective experience in terms of physico-chemical brain activity is possible. Another dimension of reality is required. There is a huge, vast, gaping explanatory gap between brain processes ('neural correlates') and mental experience.

Mental experience cannot be explained in terms of causes and conditions nor structures of the brain. There are correlations, but no explanations.

This shouldn't be surprising if we remember teachings on sunyata, that the three irreducible aspects of all phenomena are:

(1) Causes and conditions
(2) Structures - relations of wholes to parts and aspects, and vice versa.
(3) Mental imputation.

Mental imputation is associated with, but cannot be reduced to the two other aspects. The mind is an irreducible feature of reality.

If you were to put it in Buddhist terminology, I suppose you would say that the brain is not a valid basis of imputation for the mind (and any case what would be the entity that was doing the imputing?).

The short circuit from mind to particle physics
The flaw at the bottom level is that there seems to be a direct connection to the top level which doesn't go through the hierarchy. The links between the behaviour of fundamental particles and the activities of the mind are suspiciously close.

There are fascinating parallels between what physicists have learned about sub-atomic physics and the Buddhist ideas of emptiness and dependent origination. In addition, as Einstein famously remarked "The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible"

The problem of emergence
The flaw in the middle is the lack of equivalence in both directions (aka the problem of emergence). You can logically go down the hierarchy, but not up it. From observing the behaviour of sub-atomic particles you could not even deduce the existence of turnips, let alone brains, though close examination of both turnips and brains would lead to the discovery of their constituent particles.

`Nothing but' is untrue, because there is some mysterious `extra ingredient' being added as you go up the hierarchy.

So we will have to replace the phrase `is nothing but' by `is understandable in terms of', and do a few more corrections as well.

The mind is NOT understandable in terms of the brain. The brain is understandable in terms of biological systems.
Biological systems are understandable in terms of chemical interactions.
Chemical interactions are understandable in terms of physical interactions.
Physical interactions are understandable in terms of mathematics.
Mathematics is a product of the mind.

Now, forget the bottom and top and just look at the middle level of the hierarchy. Can you see the mysterious missing ingredient? Where does the understanding come from?

Let's turn the middle layers upside down and rephrase using Buddhist terminology...

Physical interactions are the basis of imputation of chemical reactions.
Chemical interactions are the basis of imputation of biological systems
...etc.

So even at the more mundane intermediate levels of this supposedly objective reductionist hierarchy, mental imputation is present all the time.

Mind is an irreducible aspect of reality inseparably intertwined with all levels of the physical universe.

Buddhists have nothing to fear from Science
Maybe Buddhists need to put more effort into combining arguments from science and Buddhism to demolish the deluded view of Reductionism ( aka Materialism aka Physicalism aka Naturalism).

Buddhism is grounded in philosophy, and has nothing to fear from science, not even from Darwin's Universal Acid which corrodes the 'faith-based' religions.

The bleak, deluded view of Materialist/Physicalist Reductionism is not only a major obstacle to the spiritual progress of those who (often reluctantly ) suffer from it, but it also generates fear, aggression and denial in those who oppose it but don't know how to argue against it. This denial and aggression against Materialism manifests as anti-science, irrationalism, bigotry, Creationism, Biblical literalism and is quite possibly a contributory factor to Jihadism.

But there's no reason for Buddhists to adopt the same head-in-the-sand turn-the-clock-back approach. Buddha didn't tell us to criticise and examine his teachings for no reason. He knew that his Dharma rested on unassailable metaphysical foundations.

- Sean Robsville
 

RELATED ARTICLES:

Rational Buddhism

Buddhism versus Materialism

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Buddhism Subject Index

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Inherent Existence in Buddhist Philosophy

When Buddhists speak of a thing or person being 'empty' they really mean 'empty of inherent existence'.

So what is this`'inherent existence' that it is so important to refute?

I've been trying to get my empty head around what an inherently existing object would be like. Here's a few ideas:

(1) An inherently existing entity exists in splendid isolation without the need to reference any other entity. It is completely defined by its own nature.

(2) An inherently existing entity is uncaused.

(3) It is indestructible.

(4) It is eternal.

(5) It is unchanging when viewed externally.

(6) It cannot undergo any internal changes of state.

(7) It either has no constituent parts, or if it has parts those parts are inseparable.

(8) Consequently, nothing can be ejected or removed from it.

(9) Nothing can be added to it (this would change its definition).

(10) No change in external conditions (up to and including the destruction of the entire universe) can affect it.

The fact that an inherently existent object would be indestructible rules out anything composed of physical particles, because every subatomic particle is destructible when it meets its nemesis, in the form of its corresponding antiparticle.  

Inherent existence of mathematics
I used to think that mathematics might be inherently existent, but from my limited knowledge of Goedel's theorem, I understand that no system of mathematics can be completely self-defined, and must always reference something external to itself.

Inherent existence of God
God might be another candidate for an inherently existing entity, but if he were truly inherently-existent he could never undergo a change of state in response to external conditions (eg become angry at sinners/infidels and send plagues, pestilences etc to destroy them). Neither would it matter to him whether he was worshipped or not, for no external factor could in the slightest degree affect him.

Also, if God is omnipotent, he has the power to destroy everything, including himself. So even God must be empty of inherent existence because his continued existence is contingent on his not committing suicide.

Invisibility of an inherently existent object
Returning to point (5), a physical, inherently existing object probably couldn't be viewed because the physics of viewing requires the electrons in the object to interact with the photons of light, which would require a rearrangement of the 'parts' of the object. Hence the object would be altered by external conditions.

Also, all physical objects are composed of particles of various sorts, and all particles are changed by being known (Heisenberg, dual wave/particle nature, entanglement etc). So no physical object could ever be inherently existent, as it is composed entirely of parts which are dependently-related to the knower ( and some very weird things happen when you try to find the 'true nature' of fundamental particles.)

Possibly a more abstract object could be known without viewing, in the same way that a mathematical entity such as 'Pi' can be known without being physically viewed.

Not that Pi or any other mathematical function is inherently existent. Pi depends upon the circumference and diameter of a circle. All mathematical entities are imperfect, incomplete and make Goedelian 'external references'.

For a more detailed explanation of this subject see  BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY


- Sean Robsville



RELATED ARTICLES:

Sunyata - the emptiness of all things

Existence, Impermanence and Emptiness in Buddhism

Essentialism in Physics, Chemistry and Biology

Rational Buddhism

The Four Seals of Dharma

Quantum Buddhism - Buddhist Particle Physics

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Buddhist Practices for Peace of Mind

The Rational Basis of Buddhism

Buddhist Philosophy

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