Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Buddhism and Science
ravkes
Veteran
I was wondering if any of you could share your insights on how science relates to Buddhism; specifically Anatta.
Also any suggestions of books on this subject would be helpful too, thanks.
Also any suggestions of books on this subject would be helpful too, thanks.
0
Comments
Otherwise science is the acquisition of knowledge, not wisdom. Science has nothing really to do with wisdom, except that it's a reasonable way to go about trying to figure life out on many levels. It's only as helpful as we use that information, i.e. to create new technology or cure diseases.
They're really quite separate, but in that they are a "method" they are similar. Science shows us how to gather information logically and come to logical conclusions, and Buddhism shows us how to go beyond logic and know reality through our direct experiences.
As to Anatta, science has consistently shown in their investigations that there is no self nature to cling to, either of the person or reality (microscopically and macroscopically). The brain is always shifting, the body is always reproducing itself, the matter that we're made of is an illusion. Yet scientists don't tend to go on and make the philosophical conclusions that their work implies. They reach the end of the "objective" cycle and are unable to venture past that point.
Probably the biggest problem with modern day science is its inability to deal with mind. Whereas mind is crucial in Buddhism. I am not sure how much longer science can hold this view of mental nihilism in combination with scientific realism when Western Philosophy is well aware of the limitations of scientific realism and has essentially classed it as invalid.
If you are interested look up concepts such as ontology, epistemology, realism, reductionism, idealism, instrumentalism, materialism. Its fun and if I had more time I would study it in much more detail but there are other demands on my time
Cheers, WK
Buddha Sakyamuni explained a flash of a single thought using the smallest unit of time based on the conception of worldly term - ksana (剎那) is the smallest unit of time, something like a nanosecond. According to Buddhist doctrine, a thought lasts 60 ksana. In each ksana 900 sets of arising and ceasing of mental processing take place.
Big Bang Theory
The Big Bang theory is an effort to explain what happened at the very beginning of our universe. Discoveries in astronomy and physics have shown beyond a reasonable doubt that our universe did in fact have a beginning. Prior to that moment there was nothing; during and after that moment there was something: our universe. The big bang theory is an effort to explain what happened during and after that moment.
According to the standard theory, our universe sprang into existence as “singularity” around 13.7 billion years ago. What is a “singularity” and where does it come from? Well, to be honest, we don’t know for sure. Singularities are zones which defy our current understanding of physics. They are thought to exist at the core of “black holes.” Black holes are areas of intense gravitational pressure. The pressure is thought to be so intense that finite matter is actually squished into infinite density (a mathematical concept which truly boggles the mind). These zones of infinite density are called “singularities.” Our universe is thought to have begun as an infinitesimally small, infinitely hot, infinitely dense, something – a singularity. Where did it come from? We don’t know. Why did it appear? We don’t know.
After its initial appearance, it apparently inflated (the “Big Bang”), expanded and cooled, going from very, very small and very, very hot, to the size and temperature of our current universe. It continues to expand and cool to this day and we are inside of it: incredible creatures living on a unique planet, circling a beautiful star clustered together with several hundred billion other stars in a galaxy soaring through the cosmos, all of which is inside of an expanding universe that began as an infinitesimal singularity which appeared out of nowhere for reasons unknown. This is the Big Bang theory.
There are many misconceptions surrounding the Big Bang theory. For example, we tend to imagine a giant explosion. Experts however say that there was no explosion; there was (and continues to be) an expansion. Rather than imagining a balloon popping and releasing its contents, imagine a balloon expanding: an infinitesimally small balloon expanding to the size of our current universe.
Another misconception is that we tend to image the singularity as a little fireball appearing somewhere in space. According to the many experts however, space didn’t exist prior to the Big Bang. Back in the late ’60s and early ’70s, when men first walked upon the moon, “three British astrophysicists, Steven Hawking, George Ellis, and Roger Penrose turned their attention to the Theory of Relativity and its implications regarding our notions of time. In 1968 and 1970, they published papers in which they extended Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity to include measurements of time and space.1, 2 According to their calculations, time and space had a finite beginning that corresponded to the origin of matter and energy.”3 The singularity didn’t appear in space; rather, space began inside of the singularity. Prior to the singularity, nothing existed, not space, time, matter, or energy – nothing. So where and in what did the singularity appear if not in space? We don’t know. We don’t know where it came from, why it’s here, or even where it is. All we really know is that we are inside of it and at one time it didn’t exist and neither did we.
Is the standard Big Bang theory the only model consistent with these evidences? No, it’s just the most popular one. Internationally renown Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis explains: “People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations….For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations….You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”4
In 2003, Physicist Robert Gentry proposed an attractive alternative to the standard theory, an alternative which also accounts for the evidences listed above.5 Dr. Gentry claims that the standard Big Bang model is founded upon a faulty paradigm (the Friedmann-lemaitre expanding-spacetime paradigm) which he claims is inconsistent with the empirical data. He chooses instead to base his model on Einstein’s static-spacetime paradigm which he claims is the “genuine cosmic Rosetta.” Gentry has published several papers outlining what he considers to be serious flaws in the standard Big Bang model.6 Other high-profile dissenters include Nobel laureate Dr. Hannes Alfvén, Professor Geoffrey Burbidge, Dr. Halton Arp, and the renowned British astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, who is accredited with first coining the term “the Big Bang” during a BBC radio broadcast in 1950.
How has it classed it as invalid?
The theories are what we should be wary of; these are based on data and our evaluations of that data and are subject to our imaginations, desires, fears -- we make leaps of logic where scientific theories are concerned. Though two facts make a third possible, the third is conjecture; just as likely there could be an alternative truth, but we are too limited to see that truth.
So... don't throw science out. If you want to throw the Big Bang Theory out, go ahead, but science serves our needs.
Have you looked into it yourself?
Cheers, WK
During the act of observation, the equipment used, the process taken, the theories used as a base, the knowledge of the measurer all effect what is measured. The act of measurement is interdependent with the factors involved before and at the time of measurement. So in this respect the measurements are not purely, 100% objective.
For instance, if I were to look at the images of a bubble chamber I doubt that I would see elementary particles, I was just see curvy and straight lines. So in this case the physicist needs to be trained up as to how to read these images. That then results in external factors that help determine the "objective" result. In today's high tech particle accelerators it is worse, data is crunched by supercomputers using programs developed by programmers. So in this case our view of reality is determined by how well these programs have been written. That's just a couple of cases in respect to particle accelerators. There are many more "dependencies" that can be found if you wish to look critically deeper. The same goes for measurements of neurons, scans of the brain, .....you name it.
Note that my argument is only against realism, not science.
Cheers, WK