[Buddha-l] Re: Views of Information & Knowledge (Culture &

[Bernie Simon]

On Sep 11, 2006, at 2:00 PM, Barnaby Thieme wrote:

> If the similarity between the implications of Madhyamaka and QM were as
> trivial as you suggest ("doubt about ultimate existence"), I would be 
> more
> inclined to agree. But both the Copenhagen interpretation of QM and
> Madhyamaka go into great detail about the preciselimitations of our 
> capacity
> to meaningfully describe phenomena independent of the context of their
> perception, and these detailed descriptions have a striking 
> similiarity.

The Copenhagen interpretation talks about the impossibility of 
measuring two conjugate variables to arbitrary precision. It also  
divides the physical world into two parts: an uninterpreted realm of 
quantum mechanics and an interpreted world of measurements made of 
these quantum mechanical systems. This gives the Copenhagen 
interpretation a strong instrumentalist flavor, which is the main 
reason it is not much in favor with today's practicing physicists.

All this is quite different than Nagarjuna's refutation of views via 
the reductio ad absurdum.

----
Bernie Simon / Jinpa Zangpo
weird but harmless