NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/philosop/meta/2909

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From: [e-mail] (Randall Holmes)
Subject: Re: Buddhism & Science
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Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 21:53:17 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] writes:
>In-Reply-To: <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Lorenzo Farris)
>

[...]

As my name is taken in vain later on, I'm responding to this.

>
>Revisiting some territry that I indicated earlier, the use of
>rhetoric may be appropriate:-
>
>
>           1/. Does a small child understand language?
>
>
>           2/. How does a small child gain an understanding of language?
>
>
>Most mystical traditions take you back to the pre-verbal pre-language
>methods of relating to the world. That is why they are often littered
>with child metaphors [except as ye be as little
>children...innocence...etc]
>
>I think the point here is that the concepts that a child acquires
>dictate the nature of the worldview from then on: More than that,
>they dictate the transformations possible in that worldview. If you
>live in a world of a certain set of concepts, and these form the
>axiomatic limits of what you can concieve or apprehend, then there is
>no way, without re-examining those axioms, that yiu can substantially
>change youir worldview.

The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in linguistics is related to this as well.

>
>This is, I believe, the meaning behind all esoteric traditions. They
>are ways to re-assess the fundamental assumptions in your worldview.
>The approach differs - Christianity is more emotional than Buddhism,
>but they all lead to that 'union with God' experience which I take to
>be the experience of undifferentiated existence - pre-lingusitic,
>pre-conceptual experience.

But remember that we _do_ experience this all the time; what else
could we experience?  Samsara is Nirvana :-)

>
>
>What is the relevance of this to Science and Logic. Immense. Logic is
>the glue that binds the conceptual objects of our worldview together.
>Science is the process of adding to this logical structure.

This is not precisely correct.  Logic is a feature of the world;
reason is a human faculty which keeps the various balls in the air in
our worldview.

>
>To revisit the pre-structural experience is to visit the territory
>where ideas and concepts first come into being, where our innate
>axioms such as 'space' and 'time' come into being.  It has been said
>that the ultimate point about reality is that it is what comes up and
>hits you in the face when you fall over. But for a pre-lingual child
>that CANNOT be true. To that child, some infinitely powerful cosmic
>event has caused it to experience something woefully unpleasant and
>unexpected. This is the territory where gods and demons are born, to
>be later explained away by Newton as 'gravity' :-)

But you are confusing the child's pre-linguistic interpretation of his
experience with the pre-linguistic (actually extra-linguistic
altogether) experience itself; there is no reason to believe that the
child's interpretation is better than Newton's.

>
>Returning to the original thread. Buddshism is the LOGICAL approach
>to estoteric matters IMHO. Buddhism talks about methodologies to
>approach mystical states. It talks about the problems of knowledge
>and language. And it does this in a non mathematical way, but it
>explores the same paradoxes and recursions as Godel.

The Buddhist logicians were not sufficiently technically competent to
get anywhere near Godel's results, although they were not bad for the
time.  If you can give actual quotes which resemble Godel's results,
I'll reconsider.

[...]

>
>In that context it is very necessary to distinguish between 'mind'
>'thought' and 'language'

It sure is, and you've already started out on the wrong foot.  See my
remarks on logic and reason above.

>
>When I originally referred to Buddhism as the greatest thought
>experiment ever concieved, I meant that in the sense of
>non-linguistic thought (no words involved, and not many pictures
>either!).  Now I realise that to a Western trained logician or
>philosopher, that concept is possibly  self contradictory.
>Nevertheless, I stick to my original assertion.

The actual point is that thought (which is most competent for fine
analysis when linguistic) reflects extra-linguistic features of
reality; this is as true of "logic" (the discipline) as it is of any
other valid intellectual discipline.  It is true that features of
reality which were not taken into account in our learning of language
may be difficult to get a handle on later, and that we may need to
exercise some (necessarily pre-linguistic) insight to grasp such
missed features, but this does _not_ mean that pre-linguistic thinking
is better than linguistic thinking _per se_; the "regression" is only
necessary if the linguistic thinking is flawed at its foundations,
and, if the correction is successful, it will be reflected in an
improved mode of linguistic thinking thereafter.


>
>In my opinion (and doubtless many will argue that this is not what
>Buddhism is about or should be about) buddhism amongst other
>traditions shows us the way our picture of the world can be
>disentangled - so that you can retrace the steps in your personal
>learning back to the time when you first became aware of yourself,
>and the rest of the world - and beyond. To re-visit that area is to
>understand how all of our knowledge is built on the basic tenets of a
>small very young chimpanzee-like creature in its attempts to come to
>terms with a world of language and building blocks, of emotions and
>sensations. Those tenets may not be so appropriate at the age of 40+
>as they were at the age of two, particularly if the chimpanzee is now
>a theoretical physicist.

>
>I have been criticised in the past for criticising science. Randall
>in particular is a firm adherent to the tenet that 'if it works it
>must be true'.

This is not quite my position.  Not only does it work, but it also has
to be possible to see how it works; it should be systematic.

[...]

>survival - not truth. Science is no better. Science that doesn't lead
>to predictions is non-science,

This is not always the case.  Science is also a descriptive and
categorizing activity.

 and science that leads to predictions
>of unpredictability (chaos theory?) is borderline!

Not necessarily.

  So Science IS
>utilitarian -  a set of rules-of-thumb justified by repeatibility and
>repeatability. But those rules of thumb are built on the basic
>concepts that are inherent in the way we view the world. Esoteric
>traditions go beyond that - to give the power to re-structure the way
>we see the world.

Here's the essential inversion in your account.  Science can only work
if those basic concepts are (at least partially) _correct_.  The fact
that it works (along with internal structural evidence which shows
that it is more than a collection of rules of thumb) is evidence that
they _are_ correct.  Re-structuring our concepts does _not_ change the
world; it may change how the world looks to us, but that's quite
another thing.

[...]

>paranormal. Again I am not going to go into why modification of the
>worldview leads to paranormal effects.

Aw, shucks, why not?  It depends on what you mean by "paranormal
effects".  It's astounding what the effect on the world (itself, not
our view of it) was of a change in world-view which can be credited to
Newton and Galileo; no mystical school can claim anything _remotely_
comparable.

>
>The third valid use however, is to develop new fundamental basic
>concepts

[...]

Sure.  But leave the trendy stuff out.

>
>
>But are they the most appropriate ones? They are certainly highly
>appropriate for a 'tool' 'wielding' 'ape-man' trying to make his way
>in the 'world' (PC female readers assume the feminine alternatives
>please). But are they appropriate for nuclear physics, or even
>weather forecasting?

Yes.

>
>If the logical extrapolation of those tenets is their negation - i.e.
>in the case of my understanding of Bohm, that the universe may have
>to be a solution to a far more complex equation than the universe
>appears to be itself! - then waht are the implications. Suppose that
>subatomic activity is assumed to be random and that 'God does play
>dice' - that also knocks the underlying reductionism of science on
>its head.

No, it doesn't.

>
>This is where esotericism and metaphysics OUGHT to be coming to the
>rescue. By moving away from assumptions of absolute knowledge towards
>realisation that knowledge is always relative - to our language, to
>our concepts, ultimately to our personal experience, we are prevented
>from our attempts to elevate ourselves to godlike status.

Science is always concerned with such methodological issues.  But
science also assumes that we can acquire knowledge; to assume that we
can acquire some reliable knowledge is not to assume that we have
god-like powers.  In fact, it is your lunatic claim that the world
changes obediently if we change our world-view which arrogates
god-like powers to humanity.

  Instead of
>the search for Ultimate Truth, our goals can become more realistic:
>New models of simplicity elegance and uitility - within the context
>for which they are intended.

What on earth do you think it means for a model to be accurate?
Scientific models _are_ used in the context for which they are
intended.  Unfortunately (for you) this includes human life and
indicates that our pre-scientific understanding thereof was not
accurate.  And the conclusions which modern science draws about human
life are not in the least incompatible with Buddhism (to nudge the
original topic); they are incompatible with the kinds of Western
romantic thought which like to pretend to be Buddhist.

>
>So when I talk about a 'beautiful woman' it will be understood in the
>context of my own personal sexuality and preference, and not an
>attempt to lay down universal standards of morality and
>picturesqueness.

This is unexceptionable, and no scientist would dispute it.  Since
when is aesthetics a natural science?

 Investigations of quarks and leptons may just help
>us develop new power sources, better computers or lasers, but should
>not affect personal morality.

Eh?

>
>It is this terrible
        ^^^^^^^^

Uh-uh.

 extrapolation, of 'scientific theory' to
>'universal fact' that has really caused some fundamental human
>problems in the twentyieth century.

I'm afraid not.  The problems of the twentieth century are political,
and science has never been applied in the sphere of politics.

 Because the assumption of
>physical science have been spectacularly successful, there has been
>the tendency to assume also that


'there is no god but Universal field
>theory, and Newton is his prophet'.

Amen.  Om.  :-)

 Christianity has been unable to
>do more than meekly nod in assent,

Eh?

 but Buddhism has in fact got the
>answer. "That is a suitable *assumption* for sending rockets to the
>moon, but is it the right attitude to bring towards other aspects of
>human life?"

Tell me what it would mean to bring the scientific attitude to bear on
human life.  I assure you, it hasn't been done yet.

>
>And it may not even be a suitable assumption for subatomic physics
>either.


_All_ evidence without exception indicates otherwise.




--
The opinions expressed        |     --Sincerely,
above are not the "official"    |     M. Randall Holmes
opinions of any person        |     Math. Dept., Boise State Univ.
or institution.            |     [e-mail]