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Cause and effect vs. Randomness
person
Don't believe everything you thinkThe liminal space Veteran
A core philosopical position of Buddhism is that everything has a cause. Quantum mechanics seems to show truly random events however. Are both true in some way? Is randomness not really random? Is cause and effect also an illusion?
Does anyone know of any articles or teachings or have any ideas of their own that resolves this seeming conflict?
:scratch:
Does anyone know of any articles or teachings or have any ideas of their own that resolves this seeming conflict?
:scratch:
0
Comments
My personal opinion and observation is that sometimes what appears to be random really isn't. There can be a long, subtle chain of events and decisions on our part that lead to an eventual result--often too long a chain for us to be able to perceive unless we're able to step back and take the macro-view. But there is also genuine randomness.
Quantum mechanics also shows that results of seeming random movements are determined by the introduction of an observer. Not so random any more. For some mysterious reason.
we as humans like to jump from one to another based on our circumstance.
as long as i've been alive causality is the most obvious view on reality.
buddhism is about the release from your suffering. it really doesn't give a hoot about metaphysics. here and now lets help relieve your suffering.
also based on my experience there are no accidents. everything is cause/effect.
"Some people have interpreted this sutta as stating that there are many experiences that cannot be explained by the principle of kamma. A casual glance of the alternative factors here — drawn from the various causes for pain that were recognized in the medical treatises of his time — would seem to support this conclusion. However, if we compare this list with his definition of old kamma in SN 35.145, we see that many of the alternative causes are actually the result of past actions. Those that aren't are the result of new kamma. For instance, MN 101 counts asceticism — which produces pain in the immediate present — under the factor harsh treatment. The point here is that old and new kamma do not override other causal factors operating in the universe — such as those recognized by the physical sciences — but instead find their expression within those factors. A second point is that some of the influences of past kamma can be mitigated in the present — a disease caused by bile, for instance, can be cured by medicine that brings the bile back to normal. Similarly with the mind: suffering caused by physical pain can be ended by understanding and abandoning the attachment that led to that suffering. In this way, the Buddha's teaching on kamma avoids determinism and opens the way for a path of practice focused on eliminating the causes of suffering in the here and now."
The Great Discourse on Causation
The Discourse on the Root of Existence
metta
Randomness is often used to refer to the unexpected or lesser probability
I suppose, although a random event is based in causes & conditions, it still has its random quality
:wtf:
This is in no way in contradiction to the teachings of the Dharma. In fact, I feel it confirms it. Buddhism holds that Emptiness is the ultimate "ground of being", or whatever you want to call it; quantum physics holds that particles can just appear out of nothing and then annihilate each other. But their spontaneous coming into existence doesn't mean there is no cause, just that the cause is not apparent and the results of that cause are random.
I have the advantage of being married to a mathematician, who understands far more about these things than I do, but one thing is certain: be careful in using analogies from quantum physics, as no one understands it, not even top physicists. According to Prof Richard Feynman, anyone who says he understands quantum physics (including Feynman, who won a Nobel prize for it), is either lying or mistaken.
as for the rest of your post & expertise on physics, thanks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_variable_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randomness#In_the_physical_sciences
The point is that, as the Heart Sutra puts it "...form is emptiness and emptiness is form". Physicists say much the same thing, only they too put it a different way. Form/matter arises out of Emptiness: 'Emptiness' is not nothingness but has been described (by great teachers, not by me) as 'ultimate potential'.
None of which has anything to do with Christianity.
This topic brought up memories of your bicycle accident story in NY. I was thinking of you when I wrote part of my response.
form & matter do not 'arise' out of emptiness, like a painting arises out of a blank canvas
all things are empty; all things possess the characteristic of emptiness
they do not 'arise' out of emptiness, like God is reported to have created the world out of the void in Genesis
as the Heart Sutra puts it "...form is empty and empty is form
any 'teacher' that asserts Emptiness is the 'ground of being' is confused rather than 'great'
:wtf:
But the Buddha didn't address things on a smaller scale than that, it has no real bearing on the situation we are in, the cessation of dukkha or the path to enlightenment. Put another way, the Buddha wasn't concerned with metaphysics or modern physics in his teachings, he was just concerned with the path to enlightenment. Though I'm sure he would have found Quantum mechanics interesting.
Asanga referred to that observation as the Condition of the existence of a cause.
Every change in the world has not one cause, but a vast interconnected field of causes. Some of these may be mechanical, some may be mental, moral, social or spiritual (ie karma) and some may be pure chance, in the sense implied by quantum indetermination.
Randomness (be it stochastic or chaotic) is perfectly compatible with dependent origination. I can see no reason why it would not be, at least.
I don't think the Buddha could have said anything about k-meson decay, but I do think such random events are irrelevant to the kind of causation that dharma focuses on, ie karmic.
Well wishes:)
Earthquakes were once thought to be random events; but since we now understand their causes and conditions, we now know they're not random.
I partly agree with Tosh about the physicists explanation, only I know a lot of physicists (my partner is a mathematician, specialising in applied maths, which practically is physics) and they believe the universe is entirely random. In the sense that in the spaces between matter, particles and their corresponding anti-particles are constantly coming into existence and then annihilating each other. No one knows why some particles continue to exist, without their corresponding anti-particle annihilating them. But the chances of a particle continuing to exist do seem like random chance.
I've read a bit of the Dalai Lama's opinions of the connections between physics and Buddhism. He seems to draw parallels between this spontaneous coming into existence, and some Buddhist cosmology. So I haven't made this up.
But honestly, I get tired of such debates. I tend to concur with Sabir (although I might take issue with your definition of metaphysics