[Buddha-l] Views of Information & Knowledge (Culture & Religion)

[Barnaby Thieme]

Hi Erik

Yes, I think I understand what you're saying here now.

I would not by any stretch of the imagination say that Indian yogis 
discovered the truths of quantum mechanics. They produced nothing remotely 
similar to, say, Schrodinger's Wave Equation. What seems interesting to me 
is that some interpretations of quantum mechanics propose very specific 
limitations on the degree to which we can meaningfully phenomena as 
ultimately existing. In many cases, those limitations are extremely similar 
to similar limitations expressed by, say, Chandrakirti. Now, this makes me 
go "hmmmm".

I recently read an article in New Scientist magazine in which Stephen 
Hawking made an argument that the history of the universe only has meaning 
from any particular perspective; from the point of view of his cosmological 
theory, it does not exist "in itself". The argument he made was very similar 
to something Kensur Yeshe Thupden had said years earlier. In the context of 
analyzing Prasangika-Madhyamaka tenets, Kesur-la asserted that prior events, 
including the Big Bang, are "retroactively imputed by consciousness". I 
could go more into the details of both arguments, but I take them both to be 
saying something very similar, and that seems like a very important point.

Regarding eternal principles et cetera, my own perspective is that the 
general laws of the universe are emergent from the total activity of 
everything interacting, and that universal "constants" fall out of that 
dynamic interrelationship. Physicists now believe, for example, that the 
speed of light C is actually changing as the universe evolves.

best regards,
Barnaby

_________________________________

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing
- Emo Philips




>From: Erik Hoogcarspel <jehms at xs4all.nl>
>Reply-To: Buddhist discussion forum <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
>To: Buddhist discussion forum <buddha-l at mailman.swcp.com>
>Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Views of Information & Knowledge (Culture & 
>Religion)
>Date: Sat, 09 Sep 2006 15:15:46 +0200
>
>Barnaby Thieme schreef:
>
>>Howdy Erik
>>
>>>This view is very modern, it's based on the logocentric view that the 
>>>world is based on eternal selfevident principles.
>>
>>
>>I'm not sure what you mean here. I do not believe in eternal, self-evident 
>>principles, and as far as I'm concerned, none of the views I've put forth 
>>require that I do. Could you say a little more?
>>
>Hi Barnaby,
>
>I'm kind of in the middle between two extremes. The one is that everything 
>people come up with is 100% determined by history. A proponent of this view 
>is Heidegger, who insists that philosophy is an event in Western history 
>and that such a thing as Indian or Chinese philosophy is impossible. The 
>other extreme is Platonism or logocentrism: the world is made out of 
>eternal principles (logoi) which are expressed in material beings, things, 
>states and processes and in the minds of people with varying degrees of 
>perfection. If QM is an eternal logos, then it's not surprising that people 
>in different periods in history in different places pick something of it up 
>and express it in the language of their time.
>My objection against this view is that every concept has to be understood 
>within it's own context and paradigm. Pythagoras for instance saw in 
>mathematics the expression of the universal harmony, he didn't see it in 
>the form of a calculus, a structure of meaningless relations and algoritms. 
>I think that technology for instance makes a huge difference, it creates 
>extrasensory spaces where laws rule that are unthinkable in daily life and 
>it makes us judge algoritms by there pragmatic in stead of their esthetic 
>qualities. So I think that it is principally impossible for a yogi to come 
>up with something like QM, simply because he does not play the same 
>(language)game as scientists do today.
>I think that in daily life many things may be the same in different times 
>and places. Otherwise Buddhism would be obsolete, but I think there are 
>many differences in the area of formal theories. Does this make any sense 
>to you?
>
>Erik
>
>
>www.xs4all.nl/~jehms
>weblog http://www.volkskrantblog.nl/pub/blogs/blog.php?uid=2950
>
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