Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
From: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk (Leo Smith)
Subject: Re: Buddhism & Science
Reply-To: shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 22:00:00 +0000


>>>other/meta 63 holmes@opal.idbsu.edu(11723)3Jan93 21:53 c55
TITLE: Re: Buddhism & Science

+Message-ID   : <1993Jan3.215317.2225@guinness.idbsu.edu>
+From         : holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes)
Randall:

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

The fact that you ARE responding, means that it wasn't in vain...

[...]

>>
>>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 :-)

Well yes, in the sense that we can still experience birdsong with the 
TV turned up full, yes we are, but not consciously: We are focussed 
on the objects of our own discrimination. Practical yogic stuff shows 
that it IS possible to focus on the underlying experiences, as small 
children do. 

>>
>>
>>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;

I don't think I agree with you, except in the sense that logic is a 
feature of human thought, and humans are a feature of the world. To 
me logic is a system of discrimination, not necessarily an inherent 
prpoerty - care to expand on why you said that in another thread?

>reason is a human faculty which keeps the various balls in the air in
>our worldview.

I think I'll go along with that.

>
>>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.

True. And of course in 99% of pragmatic cases Newton's explantion is 
more USEFUL. However there are two points I want to make in response.

(i) Bryan Appleyard makes a point very clearly in his book 
'Understanding the present' that utility is only one aspect. It may 
actually be more effective, for example, for a culture to believe in 
a divine purpose that causes them to be a 'chosen people' than to 
feel that the universe has no meaning. Blissful ignorance and 
superstition may actually be MORE effective in another sense.

(ii) The point about esotericism is not to claim that the pre-lingual 
view is 'better' than the post: Rather it sets the boundary on the 
applicability of the lingual. I believe that is what is meant by the 
riddles like 'what is the sound of one hand clapping' - it forces the 
student to examine the reality og his experience, and not get trapped 
in the language. This pre lingual area is exactly where you need to 
go when confronted by a set of data that have some apparent order, 
but whose underlying structure cannot be expressed. I.e. is where 
creativity comes from - the idea of describing the fall of an apple 
in terms of a 'force' for example.

>
>>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.

Well - you are presumably a technically competent mathematician, so I 
will forgive you what appears to be a bias in favor of mathematical 
formulations. For me, the paradox of recursion - which is what I 
understand to be the underlying aspect of Godel, is very clearly 
expressed in a 13th century Taoist text "Seek not to probe behind 
consciousness with consciousness - that cannot be done" (Wilhelm 
translation 'Secret of the Golden Flower')


[...]

>
>>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.

No. I am simply using these terms perhaps in a way which you would 
not. That, all other things being equal, would make you as wrong as 
I. However in these matters it is consensus reality which has to make 
the choice.  I never claimed to have studied the philosophers to the 
extent where every word I use is as Kant or Wittgenstein or Russell 
might have employed. Let the net decide.
 
>
>>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,

Not flawed, inappropriate.

>and, if the correction is successful, it will be reflected in an
>improved mode of linguistic thinking thereafter.

Otherwise I agree.

[..]
>
>>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.


So is myth, and occultism. What makes you happier with a world of 
'leptons' than a world of 'demi-urges?' I strongly feel that if a 
particular description merely gives us a 'handle' on a phenomena - 
for instance I clearly remember going to the doctor once with a 
persistent runny nose, and being told in majestic terms that I was 
suffering from 'rhinitis' consualtion of the dictionary revealed that 
this impressive word meant 'a running nose' - then it is pointless. 
Science that merely describes is surely only to impress the ignorant. 
If it simplifies, it *ipso facto* has predictive power. If it 
describes, but doesn't simplify it is mere mumbo jumbo.   I can't 
prove it mathematically, but I challenge you to isolate reductionism 
from prediction: Anything that enables you to group diverse 
phenomenae under a common label, gives you the power to predict that 
if a substantial number of those phenomanaew occur, then there is a 
higher likelihood of the others associated with that label. 

Taking the case of the runny nose, 'rhinitis' adds nothing except 
pomposity and professional reassurance. I do not call that science. 
To call it 'flu would mean that we might predict other phenomenae: A 
headache or fever perhaps. To call it bad spirits might aslo lead us 
to look at the personal aspects of the illness, and might 
surprisingly get us to an explantion of ilness as associated with 
stress, quicker than 'modern' medicine. Which would you consider 
'scientific'? I suppose the use of the term 'rhinitus' which explains 
why you are less happy with my use of the term 'logic' when applied 
to estoricism.

Well there is psuedo science and there is pseudo science I suppose 
:-)

I maintain that is the predictive power of Science that gains our 
respect - as an explanation it is rather dull.


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

>Not necessarily.

I think necessarily. I really have to challenge you to come up with a 
reasoned exposition of why a science that doesn't predict, or 
predicts unpredictability, should be practised, or adds anything to 
human knowledge (rather than human myth, or human emotion)

>>  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_. 

Again, your use of the word _correct_ seems to me misleading. IF I go 
to the witch doctor because I have bad spirits in my head, and he 
advises me to avoid the evil swamps, and to eat only food ritually 
sacrificied over a flame, and to avoid upsetting my friends or they 
will put the evil eye on me, and I follow his prescriptions, and get, 
and stay, well, does this mean that the assumptions of our dialogue 
are _correct_ . I am sure that you would say that they are not: And 
yet they are efficacious. I prefer to avoid the morass of Reality by 
sticking to something we can agree on: Science is effective. Whether 
its premises are true or correct is something that I do not think we 
can ever discover. William of Occam laid down the principles on that 
many years ago, and I see no reason to deviate.  

> 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. 

Not at all. Not in absolute terms. Again I can't prove it 
mathematically - which is probably the only way you would be 
convinced, but I would be willing to bet that for any given set of 
phenomena there is more than one equation that could be used to 
describe them. You may regard the equations as equivalent - that is 
valid if you are only concerned with efficacy, but it is not valid to 
do so if you are after 'Truth' or 'Correctness'. Example of VERY 
basic kind. Take harmonic motion. You can describe it in terms of an 
amplitude time graph, or in terms of an amplitude frequency graph. 
Bothe are reductionist descriptions that accord with the phenomena. 
There exists a mechanism for translating beteween the two domains. 
From the point of view of efficacy bothe are useful. As an engineer I 
would use whichever was the easiest to calculate:-) but is one more 
correct than the other? Does my violin string vibrate in time, or is 
it an imperfect example of a timeless eternal resonance?

> Re-structuring our concepts does _not_ change the
>world; it may change how the world looks to us, but that's quite
>another thing.

That Randall, is an article of faith, not a fact. It is the a priori 
assumption of the scientist. You have NO WAY of knowing whether if 
you REALLY believed in fairies, you wouldn't find them at the bottom 
of your garden:-) 

But even you - if I ask the question:-

"does what you think and the way you think not alter the world even 
one tiny little biochemical randall-brain bit?"

will have to answer 'No' or lay yourself permanently open to the 
charge that what you think has absolutely no effect on the cosmos 
whatsoever.



[...]

>>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.

Lets say that one of the side effects of Newton has been to remove 
most of the supernatural from our worlds. I'll go into that in 
another thread another time.

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

[...]

>Sure.  But leave the trendy stuff out.

Which trendy stuff was that? 

>
>
>>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.


How much rain is going to fall on London in July 1993 Randall? Do 
tell me.
I think that a theory that describes in a language that isn't even 
reductionist, and so has no predictive power, and whose sole 
recommendation is that it 'fits in' with 'established' views on what 
the world is and how it is put together, is about as much use as 
saying that the world is just Yin and YTang, after all. It sounds 
deep and impressive, but accomplishes no more than mystification of 
the unexplained.

>>
>>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.

Oh yes it does. If the rational process starts with the assumption 
that everything is composed of energy in a space time matrix, and 
that events (i.e. changes in quantity at any given point in that 
matrix) may be predicted by 'laws' and yet when it comes down to it, 
the 'laws' cease to operate at the micro level, and become more and 
more stochastic, I have to say that in the limit, any theory that 
says "I could tell you whether the cat is dead, if only I knew" is 
pretty much past its sell by date. Its power of prediction is pretty 
thin, its become unbelievably complex. It's sole justification is 
that it doesn't rock the boat of the original assumption: The energy 
space-time assumption. Well - try some different assumptions, is all 
I am saying. Don't be afraid to sacrifice a few sacred cows. Maybe 
electrons appear according to the result of some pan dimesnional 
presidential election. Maybe they are sentient and are playing tricks 
on us. I don't know. Nor do you.
 
>
>>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. 

I think that what I meant by god-like powers, was that science has a 
monopoly on 'correctness' on 'truth' on 'the nature of reality'. It 
does not. It has efficacy only. 

> 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.

I never said that it changed obediently, nor did I ever state in what 
sense it might change. My point there is to try and illustrate that 
*in the limit* even _you_ have to admit that what you think has an 
effect on the world. 

As the old joke goes, now we have established the principle, the rest 
is merely a negotiation on price.....

>>  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.

And in many contexts for which they are not. I would say that Marxism 
is a prime example.

>  Unfortunately (for you) this includes human life and
>indicates that our pre-scientific understanding thereof was not
>accurate. 

And what gives you the assurance that post scientific is more 
accurate, and how much is 'accuracy' like 'correctness' and 
'realness' and 'truth' more a question of 'efficacy'.

> And the conclusions which modern science draws about human
>life are not in the least incompatible with Buddhism (to nudge the
>original topic); 

Quite right too.

>they are incompatible with the kinds of Western
>romantic thought which like to pretend to be Buddhist.

Quite right. But which are you? And which am I? 
 


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

>Eh?

Ok. I will answer that one. It goes like this.

"By using a model in which 'inanimate laws of nature' feature, we are 
enabled to wield powerful weapons of destruction, cure ills, destroy 
habitats, feed the starving, posion ourselves etc etc."

"Because this all works so well, it must be becuse our premises are 
TRUE"

"Therefore the universe is inanimate and uncaring, and what we think 
has no meaning - the only God is the God of Truth and Correctness, 
and he cares not for man - one way or the other, though Man cares for 
him, for he is the giver of much Power"

"Therefore since no One is watching, I will nick my neighbours 
Pontiac, because in an uncaring universe, I will do as I please, 
because, like Science, I can."

"Science does not and cannot talk of Good or Bad or Should or Should 
Not, and since Science is True, these concepts must be false, or at 
least well past their sell-by date"

Geddit? The implications of a deterministic and impersonal universe 
are in fact quite socially and culturally destructive. I know that 
all scientists will shriek that this is not what science is, or 
should be, but the fact remains that by and large that is precisely 
the effect it has had on large numbers of people. 

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

>Uh-uh.  

Sorry: I stand by that Randall. You may think that you are not 
responsible for the sort of extrapolation that I have outlined. It 
won't make any difference when the fundamentalists beat down YOUR 
door. I should rather say that you may not be responsible for the 
mis-representation and mis-interpretation of science, but if you stay 
stuck up uin your ivory tower and don't come down to argue with the 
likes of Hawkins and Capra, you deserve whats coming to you.

>> 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.

F****ing crap. Marxism was entirely a 'scientific' politics. Based on 
19th century materialism. Science has ALWAYS been applied in the 
service of, and as justification for, political power broking. The 
reason why the US won the war in the Gulf is not because of 
ideological superiority, it was because of massive technical 
superiority. Nazism (as we have heard in this group) borrowed heavily 
on certain philosophical concepts. Your statement is tantamount to 
saying 'Well just because I built the gun, loaded it and left it 
lying in the street, doesn't make me responsible for that kid using 
it to blow his fathers brains out' Look to your own philosopher's, 
Randall. Mark Twain I believe has Jim tell Huck Finn 'A rattlesnake 
ain't responsible for being a rattlesnake, but you kills him just the 
same'.  If Scientists aren't responsible for the misuse of science 
and the misrepresentation of science, then they deserve every last 
bit of criticism for abrogating theior responsibility to the 
community at large.

>> 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.

It can't be done Randall. The assumptions of Science are not 
appropriate. They tried Marxism - and look where that lead. 

Science, at its very, very best, might just tend towards telling us 
what might actually be. Or at least a model so elegant and detailed 
that we would have almost infinite power to alter ourselves, and our 
world.

But how can it ever tell us what we ought to be doing about it? Given 
infinite powers, what would you do? Having arrived at ultimate truth, 
now what? Having pulled all the pieces of the world apart, what 
should we then build? How can science tell us that?

Lets say we involve some 'Western Romantic' ideals. Lets say we say 
'listen to your feelings, and follow those' NO. Science tells us that 
those are just the patterns of our biochemistry, a result of 
submicroscopic stochastic processes over which we might, or might 
not, exert control - what does it matter? In the end Man and his 
thinking are still subject to those stochastic laws: we have no free 
will. If we think we do it is just the manifestation of yet more 
random subatomic events.

The net result of following the scientific path to the limit is to 
render us completely powerful, yet to rob us of our reasons for using 
it. The assumption of a universe governed by laws gives us the power 
to apprehend those laws - and yet if we reach for ultimate power, we 
are caught in the Godelian trap - those laws MUST apply to us as 
well.....instead of freedom, we have built ourselves an intellectual 
prison. We are trapped within the confines of our own assumptions, 
victims of the laws we sought to utilise, slaves of the Lamp....
:-)


Randall: What I am trying to say is this. I do not extrapolate the 
science I use to dictate the whys and wherefores of my daily personal 
life. Science cannot and does not tell me anything useful about why I 
am here, or what I ought to do about it. Indeed its primary 
assumption is that 'I' amd not 'Here' and nothing I do can make any 
difference: The observer is, in fact, outside of the system observed 
(cf Buddhist 'detachment').

It is a fact (relative and personal, but a fact) that I percieve 
myself to be alive and within a universe, not oustide looking in. And 
in that respect I choose to accept the dictates of the game as they 
appear, and do as I feel, using science and technology to achieve 
ends which are personal, romantic, idiosyncratic and not in the least 
bit scientific. I offer no justification for this other than to say 
that if I were to extrapolate science to its limits and apply it to 
my personal life, I would find in it the sort of rational dullness 
that you find in socialist cultures - notably scandinavia. Now this 
may be the choice of the supreme rationalist - to remove all choice 
and desire from the individual, and equip him with a comfortable 
sanitised and banal life: It is not mine. And is factory-farmed 
humanity 'better' than starving in Somalia? Who can tell? Is one year 
of anguish amongst the hot african dust better or worse than sixty 
years of non-events in Copenhagen? Science cannot tell me. Science 
always falls back on 'common sense'. Unfortunately Human nature 
disagrees, which is possibly why scandinavia has the highest suicide 
rate in the western world.

You want to tell me that science has the answers, one day all the 
answers, to all problems including human problems.

I tell you that there are some questions that science cannot even 
ask, let alone answer. Esoteric traditions may at least allow the 
framing of the question, evenm if the answers that they may provide 
are not the sort of answers that you are used to.

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


>_All_ evidence without exception indicates otherwise.

I disagree. Even taking the established worldview, we have to admit 
that thought itself is probably a function of subatomic events. It 
would be quite surprising if we are not getting quite near the point 
at which mind and matter (as conventionally described) do interface. 
The assumption of an independent cosnciousness as we approach those 
levels is downright hazardous.

Don't dismiss me as an irrelevant romantic Randall, I did my time in 
the ivory tower, though I have always preferred to build things than 
to study.


Leo