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Ah, in that case, it's absolutely useless. I don't think anybody has claimed that the LHC is after some spiritual truth... that has nothing to do with it.
The relationship between quantum physics and buddhism, if you're referring to the relationship I used to be interested in, can be there but isn't necessarily there. Best not to think about it/stress about it. Not to say that this view is particularly unvaluable, but we must not pursue any view, as it will lead to clinging.
Hey TJ, I disagree here. I was recently re-reading Mind at Ease by Traleg Rinpoche and he was talking about how it is necessary for the enlightened mind to operate both with and without discrimination. Without discrimination it is not possible to interact with Samsaric beings. I think that there can be an over reliance of meditators on Absolute Reality and they forget (or understate) its interrelationship with Relative Reality and how they cannot be separated (Well atleast I know that I made this mistake, maybe others are better prepared than myself). So I would argue that Views are valid in their relative context, as long as a meditator realises that these views are contingent then that's fine, the clinging should be minimal and should be dropped with meditation. Even if Ultimate Reality is given greater emphasis than the Relative I think that this will resolve itself in meditation over time anyway.
Emptiness is not different from Form, Form is not different from Emptiness....
Also Quantum Physics and Science generally has lots of "pointing out" information to the true nature of reality if one is inclined to follow up and has the karmic fortune, or the guts, to be able to see it. Unfortunately, critical thinking has continued to go downhill in Science, where Scientists get confused between the things that they have validly asserted and their philosophical assumptions that they overlay on their results which are unfounded in science.
A typical example is when Neuroscientists claim that a particular group of neurons are the "cause" for a particular phenomenon. I find this type of statement infantile and that's an understatement. How can they say that a neuron is a cause as something must of caused the neuron to fire in the first place, either electrical or chemical phenomenon. Furthermore there is evidence now arising that the electric field itself modifies the firing of neurons resulting in an even more complicated feedback system (Scientific American Mind Nov-Dec 2010). At best the operation of the brain may be approximated to chaos theory or some limited modelling, at worse it will become un-knowable except at the superficial level, probably similar to our weather predictions. These models will most likely be useful but they will not come anywhere near complete understanding of brain function as currently assumed.
This is only one case that shows the interrelationship and inseparable nature of the brain. The emptiness of the brain.
To get back on topic, another "pointing out" to the nature of scientific theories, in this case the building blocks of matter. 1) Are we to expect that as paradigm shifts occur that the fundamental building blocks of matter coincidentally change as well? 2) Or do we assume that previous paradigms are incorrect? Option 1) seems reasonable to me. Option 2) which I think would be in popular acceptance by scientists leaves me with this dilemma: If the previous paradigms have, without fail, over time proven to be false, then the present paradigm is also going to be proven false in the future, so therefore it is already wrong we just don't know it yet. The emptiness of scientific theories. (Sure there is an assumption that the current theory will be proven wrong but this assumption is backed by historical evidence, whereas the assumption that the current theory will stand correct is not founded on any historical evidence)
Also a fundamental particle (or thing) is limited to an ultimately existing fundamental "thing" (aka quark or electron or string or brane), or it is made of some other entity. Either we have an infinite recursion or a thing that ultimately exists as a fundamental. I can't imagine a fundamental entity, if it exists then what is it made of? The emptiness of the fundamental entity.
Wherever we look, we will find unavoidable brick walls that prevent us from knowing anything ultimately. The best we can achieve is to shift the wall to another place, yet its still there- "pointing out" data is everywhere. We just need to get past the so what problem and look at how all pervasive this limitation is.
Anyway, its now way too late and I've got work tomorrow and I've probably bored everyone to sleep at their keyboards. Good luck with your meditation (life is short) and keep safe,
The dependent origination you were describing in the latter half of that post Matthieu Ricard is certainly and rigorously defending against Trinh Xuan Thuan in The Quantum and the Lotus.
Therefore, is it Thuan's quantum assertions that are being chastised? The importance of this is that, whether or not the book is entirely accurate, I can still remember to use Matthieu's principles and logic in the future.
Roger, by not producing the Higgs particle, the LHC is proving a theory to be false. Therefore, it's still useful as it tells us to modify our understanding.
Disclaimer: I am not up to scratch with what's going on with the LHC, so I don't know exactly what theory they're proving and what it means, but I am pretty sure it's significant.
Absolutely useful! Yes!
:thumbsup:
OTOH I remember hearing it discussed as a the supreme scientific instrument which will reveal _ultimate_ secrets of the universe. The implication was we'd get answers to spiritual questions.
That bothered me because Science can't reveal things like that.
I dunno, maybe I heard it wrong. There was a great deal of hype when it opened.
OTOH I remember hearing it discussed as a the supreme scientific instrument which will reveal _ultimate_ secrets of the universe. The implication was we'd get answers to spiritual questions.
That bothered me because Science can't reveal things like that.
I dunno, maybe I heard it wrong. There was a great deal of hype when it opened.
That's the way that the media presents any scientific undertaking or discovery. There is where the blame mainly lies; there and with whomever started the "God particle" nonsense.
That's the way that the media presents any scientific undertaking or discovery. There is where the blame mainly lies; there and with whomever started the "God particle" nonsense.
Thanks for the cartoons upalabhava! That nails it.
I'll watch EVEN MORE news programs to get an even better picture of what's going on
BTW, That 2012 Mayan calendar drivel? "No!" :banghead:
I'm listening to this right now; it might be interesting. E.g., toward the beginning he asserts that external reality is an illusion, a la Yogacara et al.
[Note: the title is meant to be a joke, as he points out in the disclaimers]
Here's the abstract:
Richard Feynman once famously quipped that no one understands quantum mechanics, and popular accounts continue to promulgate the view that QM is an intractable mystery (probably because that helps to sell books). QM is certainly unintuitive, but the idea that no one understands it is far from the truth. In fact, QM is no more difficult to understand than relativity. The problem is that the vast majority of popular accounts of QM are simply flat-out wrong. They are based on the so-called Copenhagen interpretation of QM, which has been thoroughly discredited for decades. It turns out that if Copenhagen were true then it would be possible to communicate faster than light, and hence send signals backwards in time. This talk describes an alternative interpretation based on quantum information theory (QIT) which is consistent with current scientific knowledge. It turns out that there is a simple intuition that makes almost all quantum mysteries simply evaporate, and replaces them with an easily understood (albeit strange) insight: measurement and entanglement are the same physical phenomenon, and you don't really exist.
Comments
Emptiness is not different from Form, Form is not different from Emptiness....
Also Quantum Physics and Science generally has lots of "pointing out" information to the true nature of reality if one is inclined to follow up and has the karmic fortune, or the guts, to be able to see it. Unfortunately, critical thinking has continued to go downhill in Science, where Scientists get confused between the things that they have validly asserted and their philosophical assumptions that they overlay on their results which are unfounded in science.
A typical example is when Neuroscientists claim that a particular group of neurons are the "cause" for a particular phenomenon. I find this type of statement infantile and that's an understatement. How can they say that a neuron is a cause as something must of caused the neuron to fire in the first place, either electrical or chemical phenomenon. Furthermore there is evidence now arising that the electric field itself modifies the firing of neurons resulting in an even more complicated feedback system (Scientific American Mind Nov-Dec 2010). At best the operation of the brain may be approximated to chaos theory or some limited modelling, at worse it will become un-knowable except at the superficial level, probably similar to our weather predictions. These models will most likely be useful but they will not come anywhere near complete understanding of brain function as currently assumed.
This is only one case that shows the interrelationship and inseparable nature of the brain. The emptiness of the brain.
To get back on topic, another "pointing out" to the nature of scientific theories, in this case the building blocks of matter. 1) Are we to expect that as paradigm shifts occur that the fundamental building blocks of matter coincidentally change as well? 2) Or do we assume that previous paradigms are incorrect? Option 1) seems reasonable to me. Option 2) which I think would be in popular acceptance by scientists leaves me with this dilemma: If the previous paradigms have, without fail, over time proven to be false, then the present paradigm is also going to be proven false in the future, so therefore it is already wrong we just don't know it yet. The emptiness of scientific theories. (Sure there is an assumption that the current theory will be proven wrong but this assumption is backed by historical evidence, whereas the assumption that the current theory will stand correct is not founded on any historical evidence)
Also a fundamental particle (or thing) is limited to an ultimately existing fundamental "thing" (aka quark or electron or string or brane), or it is made of some other entity. Either we have an infinite recursion or a thing that ultimately exists as a fundamental. I can't imagine a fundamental entity, if it exists then what is it made of? The emptiness of the fundamental entity.
Wherever we look, we will find unavoidable brick walls that prevent us from knowing anything ultimately. The best we can achieve is to shift the wall to another place, yet its still there- "pointing out" data is everywhere. We just need to get past the so what problem and look at how all pervasive this limitation is.
Anyway, its now way too late and I've got work tomorrow and I've probably bored everyone to sleep at their keyboards. Good luck with your meditation (life is short) and keep safe,
Cheers, WK
Therefore, is it Thuan's quantum assertions that are being chastised? The importance of this is that, whether or not the book is entirely accurate, I can still remember to use Matthieu's principles and logic in the future.
:thumbsup:
OTOH I remember hearing it discussed as a the supreme scientific instrument which will reveal _ultimate_ secrets of the universe. The implication was we'd get answers to spiritual questions.
That bothered me because Science can't reveal things like that.
I dunno, maybe I heard it wrong. There was a great deal of hype when it opened.
That's the way that the media presents any scientific undertaking or discovery. There is where the blame mainly lies; there and with whomever started the "God particle" nonsense.
Also,
I'll watch EVEN MORE news programs to get an even better picture of what's going on
BTW, That 2012 Mayan calendar drivel? "No!" :banghead:
With all the threads about how scientists are 'infantile', 'closed minded' and so on, I am getting a bit defensive for no reason.
Anyway, I just had a "why hello there, you silly attachment, you" moment.
[Note: the title is meant to be a joke, as he points out in the disclaimers]
Here's the abstract: