How things exist - according to Buddhism and Science

Impermanence

At a time when the old feud between science and religion is flaring up again, and common ground between fact and faith seem to be diminishing, one particular branch of Buddhist philosophy may offer some basis for dialog. That branch of philosophy is ontology - or how things exist. Buddhist ontology clearly defines the similarities and differences between the spiritual and scientific worldviews.


Impermanence and Process Philosophy
Buddhism is a process philosophy; it regards change and flux as more fundamental than ‘things’, or ‘things-in-themselves’. 

According to Buddhism, every functioning object is impermanent and constantly changing. In order to produce a change, all things must themselves undergo change.   This has of course been familiar to science from Newton’s times, with every action producing an equal and opposite reaction.
 
Subsequent investigations have revealed that impermanence is pervasive, right down to the interactions of subatomic particles, which can only interact by giving and taking something of themselves, usually photons and gluons.

And as well as going all the way down, impermanence goes all the way up, so things that previous generations regarded as permanent fixtures are now known to be dynamic.  Continents move, collide and break up.  Stars, like our sun, are formed out of debris of previous stars. They burn themselves out then either explode or collapse

So with regard to impermanence,  Buddhism and science are in increasing agreement


The Three Modes of Existential Dependence

‘One single rose arises from its causes, exists in dependence upon its parts, and exists as a mere imputation by conceptual thought.

There are not three different roses but one rose existing in three different ways.’ 

-  Geshe Kelsang Gyatso  in Joyful Path of Good Fortune  p349


This is where the difference between the Scientific Materialist (Physicalist) and Buddhist interpretations of reality become apparent.  

Buddhists claim that three modes of ‘existential dependence’ are necessary to explain the world - dynamics, structure and mind. 

Physicalists say that only two modes - dynamics and structure - are needed, with the mind being reducible to the first two.

In this context, near synonyms for ‘dynamics’ are ‘causality’,  ‘function’ and ‘process’.

Near synonyms for ‘structure’ are ‘mereology’, ‘composition’ and  ‘arrangement’

Physicalism is a reductionist interpretation of science, which claims to explain all mental factors in physical terms.  (There are also more participatory interpretations of science in which the observer is part of the system - e g Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics -  but these, whether they acknowledge it or not, are closer to Buddhism than to reductionist physicalism.)


Physicalism and the Church-Turing Thesis
Fortunately, for the sake of discussion, there is a clear-cut definition of physicalism based on the Church-Turing thesis.   To be a purely physical system, a phenomenon must be capable of being completely simulated by algorithms acting on datastructures (without any unexplained remainder).

Buddhists would claim that there is always going to be an unexplained remainder, because algorithms and datastructures are not self-interpreting. Instead, any assignment of ‘meaning’ has to come from outside the system.



So how does this apply to Roses?

The complete quote from Geshe Kelsang is

‘There are three levels of dependent relationship: gross, subtle, and very subtle. Every functioning thing that we perceive directly is gross dependent-related. For example, a rose arising from its causes is gross dependent-related. However, the rose existing in dependence upon its parts is subtle dependent-related, and the rose existing as a mere imputation by thought is very subtle dependent-related. One single rose arises from its causes, exists in dependence upon its parts, and exists as a mere imputation by conceptual thought’

Causality
We can easily see how a rose can arise from its causes - rose bush, water, nutrients, sunlight etc without paying too much attention to the rose itself.

Structure
The dependence on parts is a bit more subtle. We need to look more closely at the rose to appreciate the complete anatomy of what it is in terms of its parts, which may not be grossly obvious. We may need a microscope to see the pollen and cells of the petals. And the cells have components and subcomponents.

Dependence on mental designation
The third mode of dependent existence, dependence on the mind of the observer, is even more subtle, and is best demonstrated by examining the arbitrary way that a rose comes into and goes out of existence.

Not quite a rose

Is a green shoot a rose?
Is a green bud a rose?
Is a bud showing some petal color a rose?
Has it become a rose when you can see all the petals?

Falling petals

Has it ceased to be a rose when the first petal has fallen?
…or a majority of petals, or all the petals?

No longer a rose

Or do you have to wait till it becomes a rosehip until it ceases to be a rose?

There is no rule which tells us at exactly what stage it becomes a rose and at what stage it ceases to be one. 

The decision is a subjective one,  made by how closely the botanical specimen in our hand matches a ‘generic image’ or picture of a basic rose in our mind.   And the judgement will differ from person to person.  

A generic image of a rose in our mind

There is no fixed specification for a rose ‘out there’ that tells us when an opening bud becomes a flower, or when a fading flower becomes a hip, any more than there is for when a high-sided tray becomes a box,  or at what stage of disassembly Milinda’s chariot becomes a heap of firewood.

Neither is there any permanently existing 'specification' , 'divine blueprint' or 'ideal form' of the various rose species that differentiates them one from another, or from other members of the rose family. 

Looking back along the evolutionary timeline, the judgement as to when and at what point the ancestral rosoid became a rose, is quite arbitrary.

The Rose Family (Rosaceae)

The involvement of the observer’s mind in creating reality is very subtle for everyday objects, but becomes more obvious at the quantum scale of reality.

Read more at Buddhist Philosophy

Process and Emptiness: Whitehead and Buddhism.

Process and Emptiness: A Comparison of Whitehead’s Process Philosophy and Mahayana Buddhist Philosophy  by Thomas J. McFarlane


"It is my hope that this paper will foster deeper understanding of both Whitehead’s process philosophy and Buddhist teachings, and help all sentient beings in their creative advance toward Buddhahood."

ABSTRACT: Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy is compared with Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. After briefly introducing the philosophies of Whitehead and Buddhism, some similarities between them are examined. The primary areas of convergence are

(1) Impermanence and process as fundamental aspects of reality

(2) The emptiness and lack of substance of things

(3) The relational and dependent nature of things

(4) The notion of ignorance and mistaken perception

(5) The possibility of freedom from ignorance and mistaken perception

(6) The emphasis on subjective and experiential aspects of reality

(7) The fundamental limitations of language and philosophical systems in characterizing reality. The paper concludes with a discussion of an important distinguishing feature of Buddhist philosophy, namely, its dialectical method of criticism.

Read it all here  




 
For general background see Buddhist Philosophy

Buddhism and Process Philosophy

Never stepping into the same river twice

Process Philosophy versus Substantialism
Process Philosophy holds that the underlying basis of reality is change, process and impermanence. Becoming is more basic than being, and existence is really just impermanence in slow-motion.

The converse view - Substantialism, holds that true reality is 'timeless' and based on permanent ideal forms. Change is accidental, whereas the substance is essential.

Traditional Western philosophy has always denied any full reality to change, which is conceived as only accidental and not essential.

Buddhism is, of course, the ultimate Process Philosophy. According to Buddhism, all functioning phenomena are impermanent and have no essential natures or inherent existence.


Dominance of Substantialism in Western thought
However, Substantialism has dominated Western philosophy from the time of Plato until the early twentieth century, and is still deeply embedded within our culture.

There were indeed Process Philosophers among the early Greeks. For example Heraclitus pointed out that no-one can step into the same river twice. It's not the same river nor is it the same person.

Process Philosophy Field Trip

Nevertheless, the early process philosophers were ignored or forgotten, and the theory of ideal forms propounded by Plato was adopted by the later Greeks and then enthusiastically embraced by the Christian Church as a justification for Creationism, and the derived doctrines of Original Sin, the Fall of Man etc.

Darwinism and Process Philosophy
Creationists believe that species are unchanging and derive their forms by reference to a divine blueprint equivalent to Plato's 'essences' or 'ideal forms', which were fixed by God, unchanging and inherently existent. Bible-believing creationists claim that the world and all its species were created in six days of a single week around 4004 BC.

In contrast, Process philosophy is evolutionary. If all things are impermanent, constantly arising, becoming, changing and fading, then nothing exists 'from its own side' or by reference to some 'essence'.


Just as Buddhist philosophers had previously rejected the Platonic mechanism of production from 'ideal forms' as being the fallacy of 'production from inherently existent other', so the Darwinians came to the conclusion that a species does not correspond to any inherent reality, but is merely a concept that the mind imputes over interbreeding groups of plants and animals with similar characteristics (and the majority of their genes in common). The boundary between one species and another is not clear-cut.

The Michelson–Morley experiment
Just as the theory of evolution emphasised the dynamic processes of mutation and selection, rather than static species as the fundamental realities of biology,  a similar transformation of thinking was to affect physics a few years later with the negative result of the Michelson–Morley experiment.

Until the nineteenth century, it was thought that all waves must propagate through matter. In other words, processes such as sound and water waves needed some substance to support their existence.   It was therefore assumed that space was filled with a 'luminiferous aether' through which electromagnetic waves such as light, heat, radio waves, X-rays etc propagated like ripples on a pond.  But the Michelson–Morley experiment demonstrated that this aether did not exist, and thus electromagnetic waves were standalone processes with no supporting substance.   Quantum physics was later to show that the fundamental particles of matter are also processes.


Quantum Physics, Chemistry and Substantialism
Another blow to substantialism came from atomic physics. For 2000 years scientists believed that atoms were solid chunks of matter embodying the unchanging qualities of their elements. During the 20th century this has been superseded by subatomic physics, which views matter as being a manifestation of quantum interactions and processes.

Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev

In the 19th century chemists such as Mendeleev discovered numerical relationships between the elements. Then, with the development of subatomic physics, it was demonstrated that an element's properties aren't determined by its essential nature, but by the number of electrons orbiting its nucleus.

The worldview of quantum physics differs radically from that of classical physics. An an electron isn't actually a 'thing', it's a dynamic mathematical process known as a wavefunction.


Classical physics regarded the universe as being composed of clearly-defined building blocks ('things') which were specified by their own internal properties. Quantum physics sees the universe as an ever-changing set of relationships between entities which can be defined only in terms of those relationships.



Whitehead's Process Philosophy
The first real break with 2000 years of Western substantialism came with Alfred North Whitehead's Process Philosophy formulated in the 1920's: 'The process metaphysics elaborated in Process and Reality proposes that the fundamental elements of the universe are occasions of experience. According to this notion, what people commonly think of as concrete objects are actually successions of occasions of experience. Occasions of experience can be collected into groupings; something complex such as a human being is thus a grouping of many smaller occasions of experience.' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_philosophy

Whitehead on Buddhism and Christianity
Whether Whitehead's formulation of Process Philosophy was influenced by Buddhism, or whether he arrived at his conclusions independently and later realised their similarity with Buddhism, is unclear.

Alfred North Whitehead

Whitehead famously remarked that "Christianity ... has always been a religion seeking a metaphysic, in contrast to Buddhism which is a metaphysic generating a religion." This observation is something worth considering in the current debates in the Buddhoblogosphere about whether Buddhism is a religion or a philosophy, and how far Buddhism and Christianity are compatible.

The underlying metaphysic that generates the religion of Buddhism is the Four Seals of Dharma.


'Existence' is really just impermanence in slow-motion.
To say that something exists is ultimately an arbitrary statement. All we are saying is that its rate of disintegration is negligible on the timescale of our lifetime. In reality, all functioning phenomena are impermanent - it's just that some are more impermanent than others.

'Change and decay in all around I see...'

All 'things' are impermanent, and so all things are in reality processes. Things do not stay the same from one millisecond to the next. Anything composed of atoms is composed of parts in a constant state of flux.


- Sean Robsville



RELATED ARTICLES:

Detailed Discussion of Process Philosophy and Buddhism

Rational Buddhism

Essentialism, Ideal Forms, Plato, Buddhism and Generic Images

Evolution is no Threat to Buddhism

Existence, Impermanence and Emptiness in Buddhism

The Four Seals of Dharma

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in Science and Engineering

Essentialism in Physics, Chemistry and Biology

Sunyata - the emptiness of all things

Inherent Existence in Buddhist Philosophy

Quantum Buddhism - Buddhist Particle Physics

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