From: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: Buddhism & Science
Date: 4 Jan 93 19:41:43 GMT
Reply-To: pcollac@pyrnova.mis.pyramid.com (Paul Collacchi)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Pyramid Technologies, Mt. View, California.

In article <memo.837515@cix.compulink.co.uk>, shaman@cix.compulink.co.uk
(Leo Smith) writes:
|>  
|> 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]
|>

A good overview of what Zen Buddhists call "beginners mind."
 
|> 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.
|>

Actually any "worldview" ultimately obstructs seeing "what's so."  Since
having no conceptual obstruction is a very high ideal, the intermediate
goals are to expand the 'world view' as much as possible by being
"open."  Being
open in this sense means to be non-attached to one's current worldview.
 
|> 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.
|>

The Yogic word for "emotional" paths is bhakti -- devotion.  Devotion is a 
different path than the "mind" paths -- Buddhism and Vedanta, say -- but
just as valid.  The remaining two paths are "karma" -- action, or service --
and "raja", a set of distinct practices such as meditation, chanting 
etc.

All these so-called paths are ways of "eliminating" the observer (ego)
by "expanding it."  It is alleged that ego is a false (dualistic) identity
which prevents a recognition of true identity.

|> 
|> What is it's relevance to Science and Logic? Immense. etc.
|> 


I have a slightly different take on the relevance.  Around 1930 a number
of scientific/logical results -- quantum uncertainty, Godel's theorem,
etc. -- set the limits at what Science was going to be able to achieve
as far as revealing the ultimate truth: namely, that it wasn't going to
be able to reveal ultimate truth, and worse, it could no longer even talk
about "real" things, but only their appearance to observers.  Therefore,
truth seekers who were holding their breath waiting for Science to produce
the ultimate truth could stop holding their breath, it couldn't -- just
like some mystics had predicted.

Also, the uncertainty theorem, that the error in position  times the error 
in momentum would always exceed a certain value, was explained as the very
act of looking at, say, an electron, impacted the electron.  We could expose
the electron by using a looking device (e.g. gamma ray), but that very
act of revealing the electron changed the very things we were measuring.

Looking itself impacted what was being seen.

This had a direct correlation in the mystical realm with the notion that
looking "with the mind (ego)" causes distortions in what is being seen,
because what was being seen was not the pure "thing-in-itself" but the
effects of the mind.

Paul Collacchi
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta