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

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Barnaby Thieme schreef:

> 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".

The doubt about ultimate existence is probably nearly as old as 
philosophy, so from the historical poinmt of view there's no need for QM 
to reapeat it. But more important is the why. QM has very different 
reasons, so the meaning of it's ontological propositions is very 
different. The meaning of scientific proposotions has to be understood 
from within it's model. Most philosophical propositions, especially 
those of existential and phenomenological philosophers deal directly 
with the lifeworld that has been put aside by science. Science has to 
measure and objectify phenomena and if it reaches it's own limits, that 
is a consequence of the calculus or the model. QM has a mathematical 
calculus and if the formulas and equasions run into a circle, this 
doesn't have the same meaning as when a philosopher says that we explain 
ourselves while explaining the world thus, both are relative. I agree 
that there's a formal resemblance, but I'm afraid that's not enough.

>
> 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.

If you would interprete Madhyamika as a science you will have to go the 
whole way and restate all its propositions in terms of physics. Even if 
you would succeed you would only have proved that a scientific reading 
is possible (you have constructed a one by one projection), but not 
necessary (which is what you're saying now).

>
> 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.
>
Would we notice it?
 I think we can change the whole universe overnight by changing our 
mathematical axioms. Gallilei  and Newton changed the universe in not 
more then a few decades.

Erik


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