From: mcfarlan@corona.math.washington.edu (Thomas J. McFarlane)
Subject: Re: No Soul
Organization: ----
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 05:38:28 GMT

In response to:

>>2) If everything is changing in this world (which is certainly the buddhist
>>viewpoint) then this change should be with respect to something which is 
>>constant. There are lot of examples given to explain this point in the 
>>scripture

Wong Weng Fai writes:

>	This is INCORRECT ! Change is a relative thing, yes. But it need not
>be relative to a fixed constant ! In Math, this is equivalent (I think) to the
>idea of partial derivative - change with respect to another change. The Earth
>is moving (changing) about the Sun which is also moving (changing) about the
>center of the Milky Way which is also moving ... And there is no physical
>reason to stop. To detect change, you need RELATIVE constants but ABSOLUTE
>constants are not necessary.

Yet note well:

     Verily, there is a realm, where there is neither the solid
     nor the fluid, neither heat nor motion, neither this world
     nor any other world, neither sun nor moon.  This I call neither
     arising nor passing away, neither standing still, nor being
     born, nor dying.  There is neither foothold, nor development,
     nor any basis.  This is the end of suffering...

     There is an Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unformed.  If these
     were not this Unborn, this Unoriginated, this Uncreated, this
     Unformed, escape from the world of the born, the originated, the
     created, the formed, would not be possible.  But since there is
     an Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unformed, therefore is escape
     possible from the world of the born, the originated, the created,
     the formed.
                         -The Buddha (Udana, VIII)

Indeed, to detect *relative* change, one requires a *relative* constant.
Here "change" and "constant" are relative terms.  About what, then, is
the Buddha speaking here?  It is certainly not changing, since it is
"neither arising nor passing away."  But neither is it constant, since
it is not "standing still."  Somehow, it is "neither this world nor any
other world."  Shall we reify it and call it "Self" or "Soul"?  Surely
this would be a mistake.  But is it a mistake to *not* reify it and still
call it "Self" or "Soul"?  Is that any worse than *not* reifying it and
calling it "Unborn" or "Uncreated"?  The mistake, it seems to me, is not
that some people call this realm "Self," but that some people reify it.
After all, some people call it "Emptiness" and reify it, too.  Here words
fail us if we regard them as anything more than metaphors.

By the way, partial derivatives measure change with respect to one variable
while leaving the others constant.  A metaphor in mathematics for a change
with respect to another (relatively constant) change would be given by,
for example, an equation descibing a family of curves, say c^2=x^2+y^2.
With c relatively constant, x and y change to describe a circle with radius
equal to c.  But if we allow c to change also, then this equation describes
a whole family of concentric circles.  Although c changes, it is a constant
relative to the changes of x and y.

Tom McFarlane


Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern