Buddhism and Quantum Physics

[SageTree]

So I happened on these today and thought to myself.... this could just be a load about the physics side of things.....

..... so Can I get a witness?!

[verklingen]

the bit about quantum entanglement is misleading due to the graphics, but the conclusion is the spot on. i have absolutely nothing to back it up, but i believe that the manifestation of physical reality is something like this thought experiment. imagine a massless particle. that means it is wholly unconstrained by the usual rules of motion. imagine that this particle could therefor travel infinitely fast; so fast that it can "be" in two places at the same time. . . so fast that, given a field the size of the universe in which to move, it can position itself like every particle in the universe moment to moment. that one particle represents all matter and every phenomenon matter can produce! some illusion huh?

thanks for sharing this, i loved the conclusion

[SageTree]

So here is something I was reading today when trying to find the correct words for my expression. And I just remembered the underlined and know you like the topic on both counts.

First the Duality Quote:

In Buddhist philosophy

During the classical era of Buddhist philosophy in India, philosophers such as Dharmakirti argue for a dualism between states of consciousness and Buddhist atoms (the basic building blocks that make up reality), according to "the standard interpretation" of Dharmakirti's Buddhist metaphysics. Typically in Western philosophy, dualism is considered to be a dualism between mind (nonphysical) and brain (physical), which ultimately involves mind interacting with the physical brain, and therefore also interacting with the micro-particles (basic building blocks) that make up the brain tissue. Buddhist dualism, in Dharmakirti’s sense, is different in that it is not a dualism between the mind and brain, but rather between states of consciousness (nonphysical) and basic building blocks (according to the Buddhist atomism of Dharmakirti, Buddhist atoms are also nonphysical: they are unstructured points of energy). Like so many Buddhists from 600-1000 CE, Dharmakirti’s philosophy involved mereological nihilism, meaning that other than states of consciousness, the only things that exist are momentary quantum particles, much like the particles of quantum physics (quarks, electrons, etc.).

And for the sake of contrast:
Monism:

Buddhist philosophy is generally suspicious of ontology. The Buddha himself, and some of his prominent disciples such as Nagarjuna, discouraged ontological theorizing for its own sake.

According to the Pali Canon, both pluralism (naanatta) and monism (ekatta) are speculative views. A Theravada commentary notes that the former is similar to or associated with nihilism , and the latter is similar to or associated with eternalism.

Among the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, the ultimate nature of the world is described as emptiness, which is indistinguishable from material form. That appears to be a monist position, but the Madhyamaka views - including variations like Prasangika and Yogacara and the more modern shentong Tibetan position - will fail to assert in the ultimate nature any particular point of view. They instead deconstruct any assertions about ultimate existence as resulting in absurd consequences. The doctrine of emptiness is also found in earlier Theravada Buddhist literature.

In Soto Zen teaching, it is said that "All is One and All is Different." Since non-dualism does not recognize a dualism between Oneness and Difference, or even between dualism and non-dualism, it is difficult to state the meaning of this doctrine. All discussion of this teaching by Soto Zen masters falls under the Buddhist concept of skill in means, which is to say, not literally correct, but suitable for leading others to the Truth. Chinese Soto master Tozan wrote the Verses of the Five Ranks (of the Ideal and the Actual), which is also important as a set of koans in the Rinzai school. Dongshan describes the Fifth Rank in part thus:

Unity Attained:
Who dares to equal him
Who falls into neither being nor non-being!

Shih-t'ou Hsi-ch'ien's poem "The Harmony of Difference and Sameness" Sandokai is an important early expression of Zen Buddhism and is chanted in Sōtō temples to this day. Another poem of Tung-shan Liang-chieh on these and related themes, "The Song of the Jewel Mirror Awareness", is also chanted in Sōtō temples daily.

Other expressions of this teaching include the koan:

A disciple asked, "What is the difference between the enlightened and the unenlightened man?"

The Master replied, "The unenlightened man sees a difference, but the enlightened man does not."

and Dogen Zenji's personal koan, "Why are training and enlightenment differentiated, since the Truth is universal?"

Holy Paradoxical double double double negative Bat Man!

But how does that first part fit into your post Verk. I included that second quote just for head spins..... Some stuff you just have to laugh at and take a whack at explaining I suppose. But I've always been a fan of the explanation of the Two Truths and what to keep in mind when using the relative to explain the ultimate. And for all intensive purposes that could be my *'d foot note under my posts when I got on talking. And also why I avoid just talking if I can't add anything.

Hopefully you aren't feeling shy today though either and can shine some cross referential light on things.

[verklingen]

In Buddhist philosophy

During the classical era of Buddhist philosophy in India, philosophers such as Dharmakirti argue for a dualism between states of consciousness and Buddhist atoms (the basic building blocks that make up reality), according to "the standard interpretation" of Dharmakirti's Buddhist metaphysics. Typically in Western philosophy, dualism is considered to be a dualism between mind (nonphysical) and brain (physical), which ultimately involves mind interacting with the physical brain, and therefore also interacting with the micro-particles (basic building blocks) that make up the brain tissue. Buddhist dualism, in Dharmakirti’s sense, is different in that it is not a dualism between the mind and brain, but rather between states of consciousness (nonphysical) and basic building blocks (according to the Buddhist atomism of Dharmakirti, Buddhist atoms are also nonphysical: they are unstructured points of energy). Like so many Buddhists from 600-1000 CE, Dharmakirti’s philosophy involved mereological nihilism, meaning that other than states of consciousness, the only things that exist are momentary quantum particles, much like the particles of quantum physics (quarks, electrons, etc.).

i like this! it echoes the wave/particle duality quite strongly. consciousness is the force behind physical manifestation, which is to say we might ask "how is consciousness imprinting the quantum field of buddhist atoms?" and could answer "insofar as the waters are imprinted with the energy of its waves, it is done." it carries a signature --a frequency -- and the medium of manifestation responds. it's not unlike controlling a radio dial: you are consciously deciding what frequency to impose upon the quartz crystal, and the audio reality you perceive through the set's speakers responds.

i dig this concept of emptiness a lot, i'll have to dig into your pm (no i haven't forgotten about it!). i think we're trying to use ideas like duality and monism and all they entail to communicate what simply can't be communicated in words. but bless us for trying. in a way all this dissertation is skill in means. it can point you to truth, but unless you take the steps it won't bring you to truth. all these clever ways of sharing through so many diverse schools of thought using so limited a means as language is a clue to our deep compassion for one another.

[SageTree]

I think the relative truths and ultimate truths not existing without the other is a good metaphor for the whole middle way of seeing things, which is what I find cool about it being a wave and particle. Just seems fitting.

Emptiness is like saying everything is equally, completely full on the other end of that thought spectrum and that all leans to a place of infinite potentials and possibilities. So my ears perked up yesterday as well when they were talking about the particles being 99.9999999% empty as well.
I don't know if there is an overlap in the precise meaning of emptiness respectively, but if nothing else if was engaging to hear a homophone in ideas.

What do you make of the quote talking about not monism and not dualism, but non-dualism?

More priddle praddle,
Sage

[verklingen]

i think that emptiness and physical material are indistinguishable because matter takes form according to the form of emptiness, and vice versa. you can't say what shapes what because the form is itself a definition; a force of presence that teases its reality into being as much as it scatters the rest of reality away. i see it a lot like how a sculptor chips away at a hunk of rock. the form of his artwork depends both on what is there and what is not there. conscious realization or perception culls out of the same eternal, stable, onmipresent ether all the possible states the ether is capable of. the more sharply focused our consciousness is, the more discreet and orderly the manifestation appears (as with the double slit experiment; the particle is a wave until we look at it, at which time it locks onto a discrete state). is that non-dual or do i miss the mark?

[SageTree]

i think that emptiness and physical material are indistinguishable because matter takes form according to the form of emptiness, and vice versa. you can't say what shapes what because the form is itself a definition; a force of presence that teases its reality into being as much as it scatters the rest of reality away. i see it a lot like how a sculptor chips away at a hunk of rock. the form of his artwork depends both on what is there and what is not there. conscious realization or perception culls out of the same eternal, stable, omnipresent ether all the possible states the ether is capable of. the more sharply focused our consciousness is, the more discreet and orderly the manifestation appears (as with the double slit experiment; the particle is a wave until we look at it, at which time it locks onto a discrete state). is that non-dual or do i miss the mark?

I like what you had to say there. And can see what you are saying about there and also being made of what's not there. That phenomenology and the bold line is straight Mahayana philosophy and that makes a ton of sense to me.

A quote from above, in the OP, talks about ontology and speculation. In my mind paradoxically adding non-dual to that speculative mix is a metaphor, and suggests to me that perhaps they believe we are only working with in the dichotomies that are proverbially only an inch long on a 25 ft, 3-d tape measure.

Aldous Huxley wrote a cool essay about where he felt God, what have you, existed And in this case I'm thinking of this as more of the Divine Spark or Ah ha-ness of experiencing how it happens, which is sort of what I think we are talking about here . He stated that is was the pause between, what is there to contrast or what doesn't exist.

And here is the quote I wrote in my journal. Thanks for waiting while I went to get it ....

" Beauty arises when the parts of a whole are related to one another and to the totality in a manner which we apprehend as orderly and significant. But the first principle of order is God and is the final and deepest meaning of all that exists. God, then, is manifested in relationships which makes things beautiful. 'He' resides in that interval which harmonizes events on all planes which we discover beauty." Then goes on to say, " Such then is God's beauty, as we apprehend it in the sphere of created things. But, it is also possible for us apprehend in some measure at least, as it is in itself. The beatific vision of divine beauty is the knowledge, so to say, of Pure Potential; of harmonious relationships apart from things realated."

The example he gives of Beauty-in-Itself is the lovely cloudless sky, beautiful even though there is nothing to bring orderliness or arrangement. That is to say, nothing is in the sky to created that Interval expression.

Now that is what I thought of, and I'm glad I wrote it down so I could share it today. And what I'm getting at there is "we only know what we know and we don't know what we don't know" As Dick Cheney eloquently stated, But what that gets at is we are only testing what we know to test.... What else are we missing or not adding to our understanding. This is the point on Non-dualism in my mind beyond the particular concept itself.

Namaste! and thanks for keeping this on a compassionate note Brother!
SageTree

[verklingen]

we are only testing what we know to test.... What else are we missing or not adding to our understanding. This is the point on Non-dualism in my mind beyond the particular concept itself.

the historian of science thomas kuhn has written extensively on this. modern science is a framework of testing that engages phenomena only as they apply to previous testing.

there was a psychological experiment conducted in the 1940's where a deck of regular playing cards were interspersed with a few unusual cards, like a black queen of hearts. the cards of the deck were revealed one at a time, quickly the first time through and gradually slowing down thereafter, and the subject was asked to name the card. at high speeds there was no hesitation: a black queen of hearts was obviously enough a black queen of spades. as the deck revolved more slowly they started recognizing that something was wrong, but couldn't say what until the pace slowed further still and they had a long enough time to catch on. after the experiment they described the severe discomfort of this feeling.

science, and indeed our every perception, is much the same. we are so trained to see what "should" be there that we miss everything that is there, even while staring right at it. if something doesn't fit into our scheme it is perceived as though it does, because to perceive otherwise is uncomfortable. we fear the unknown evil more than the known, and will elect to sabotage reality before reality can sabotage our expectations and beliefs. the irony is that our expectations are sabotaging us! they sabotage our understanding by causing us to miss the evident reality, and this sabotages our happiness by leading to ignorance and misinterpretation. it makes for an unhealthy relationship with existence, like involving oneself in a personal relationship only superficially. there can only be balance between equals

and that's an interesting subject, balance. in my head the concept of balance closely approximates how i conceive non-duality. what do you think of this?

Namaste! and thanks for keeping this on a compassionate note Brother!
SageTree

of course, and likewise!

[verklingen]

what i think all this points out is our severe bias of belief, and that is a symptom of the ego. rather than allowing them to shape and guide us, we are programmed to automatically beset our experiences against the ego's conception of self, as if to determine a victor. and in that we always lose, because all is vanity and vexation of spirit

[SageTree]

science, and indeed our every perception, is much the same. we are so trained to see what "should" be there that we miss everything that is there, even while staring right at it. if something doesn't fit into our scheme it is perceived as though it does, because to perceive otherwise is uncomfortable. we fear the unknown evil more than the known, and will elect to sabotage reality before reality can sabotage our expectations and beliefs. the irony is that our expectations are sabotaging us! they sabotage our understanding by causing us to miss the evident reality, and this sabotages our happiness by leading to ignorance and misinterpretation. it makes for an unhealthy relationship with existence, like involving oneself in a personal relationship only superficially. there can only be balance between equals

and that's an interesting subject, balance. in my head the concept of balance closely approximates how i conceive non-duality. what do you think of this?
/

what i think all this points out is our severe bias of belief, and that is a symptom of the ego. rather than allowing them to shape and guide us, we are programmed to automatically beset our experiences against the ego's conception of self, as if to determine a victor. and in that we always lose, because all is vanity and vexation of spirit

I am interested in who this 'we' is and why it comes of sounding like none of the 'wes' will ever get it? What is the positive side of all these things?

I'm interested in how 'wes' succeed rather than how 'they'll' never make it... from this out look of things. I agree with what you are saying the stumbling blocks are, but again.... what are the positive things happening here?

And where's the "I" in the 'wes'... what do you think about you in all this and not all the wes out there

I'm sorry man but there was so many wes in there that I have to go to the bathroom or continue speaking in french.

yes yes!
SageTree

edit: of course I mean no disrespect.... I mean that to sound more playful than it might, in re-reading it.

[verklingen]

haha i like to speak generally that's all. i'm trying to describe the condition we seem to operate from, projected of course from the condition i myself seem to operate from, and i perceive that it's the result of our social interaction as well as being what our social interaction is based on (kinda like the chicken and egg ain't it). that condition is ego, and while i can only speak for mine i speak of all ours collectively because they share certain self-limiting traits that can only be rehabilitated once they're identified. when i say we i mean that i have thus identified some or other trait that is shared among us by default, being born into society. but i'll oblige and talk solely about myself if it facilitates your understanding and ability to continue this nice chat

the good is that none of it kills me. a bruised ego is not life-threatening. supporting its mode of operation may be painful for me (a la the suffering of the material cycle in buddhism and other eastern traditions), but it is what i know and it does a good enough job to keep me alive. in this relationship i find a comfort to which i may return again and again. it is stable, calm. and as for loyalty, it has no problem sticking with me until i die. in a way, it's the total package! but i've spent some time apart from it, and realized that it closes me off from much. before i ever really get the chance to experience a thing, it's already labeling and categorizing it, ordering up just the "right" emotion and predetermined reaction to suit the piece of infinite potentiality that emerges each moment. that's absurd, of course. there are infinite ways to interact with infinity; why settle on just one?

so eventually it gets me asking questions, and that's great!

[SageTree]

Well I'd love to keep this going too... but how long can a choir preach to each other?

I followed you this whole thread and just wanted you to speak for you about you and leave the 'we's to their own expression. So thanks for your avid use of pronouns and throwing me an 'I' shaped bone. It was just that post solely which whisked ''me away to Paris

In the end this stuff is all fun to talk about and theorize over, but what are 'we'... see what I did there..... doing with this information?

[Captain Cannabis]

quantum physics is to science as shamanism is to religion

[ziplock]

Hmm... Lot of stuff covered in the thread overall... Guess start with the video and evolve from there...

The opposition seen between science and spirituality is imo so naive. The two study the same phenomenon they just differ in method and focus. Science stands as an empirical study of matter, the physical, the external. There's always been an effort to remove the observer or "participant" from the study. Be it influence on the experiment, contamination of the information, or simple personal bias. Now it's become an understood necessity to account and accommodate for the observer and their direct influence on all results as a demand of nature, or reality, itself. We can no longer not do so.

The spiritual/philosophical schools of thought and the various organizations surrounding them turned the focus onto the primary tool or instrument for any experiment or study... Ourselves. It was an internalized pursuit as opposed to the external ones of the sciences. An "intuitive" knowledge as mentioned in the video. Now people are starting to see that their conceptions of reality that seemed at times so alien to the reality we know now are actually quite applicable. This, to me, makes sense.

I don't personally use emptiness often when speaking about things such as this. I don't believe in nothing. I've began to try to look at existence from a top down perspective as opposed to bottom up. I start with everything and take away from there instead of starting with nothing and adding. I find this a sort of fundamental difference in perspective that's been apparent in human history since it's beginning. In life there seems to be an overall direction, progression, location, velocity, behind existence. Following the cause and effect train leads you down the rabbit hole and you eventually say, "okay stop, just where did it start? What started it all!?" This assumes that before there was our experience, there was nothing. Then something happened, infinity had an orgasm, big bang, rapid expansion, gradual cooling, on and on, and "I am" appears on the scene and that's where I find myself today.

I start from the basis that there has always been something, or everything. What we experience is a relative take on this everything provided to use by our bodies, their particular materialistic nature, and it's relationship with matter. Our DNA in a sense carries the memory of the universe. It's as if it's saying this is the particular take that you will experience, as opposed to the infinite amount of possibilities there are. I mean, you really have to take the time to appreciate infinite possibility and the idea of it all having an existence as legitimate as the one we collectively dissect daily. Every possible variation of angle in how you walked from the door to the car in the morning. If all else remained EXACTLY the same in your life, this one thing can be expressed in an infinite number of ways, let alone the combinations of which that can be experienced, and in this vastness, here I am, experience one. This can be inconvenient, as bills that I neglect to pay do not go away, and directly influence my future in a predictable way, albeit the vastness of infinite possibility.

To illustrate how I understand and view subjects like the video imagine you stand in the middle of a field surrounded by forest in the pitch black with a trusty flashlight. Outside of the small scope of light your flashlight provides there resides an infinite amount of possibility. When you shine your flashlight on a specific area, it collapses all that possibility into one illuminated reality. You realize that even in the scope of your light you still haven't removed all possibility, you can only see those first few trees. You realize the limitations of your perception. But now, within the scope of your light, with what you have illuminated, you have converted possibility into probability. You look at the situation in an entirely different way.

Everything exists, self realized, self aware in essence such as ourselves. The relationships create a feedback loop of sorts. Input, output. When you then take part of the output, and reintroduce it as an input, there is a sense of self awareness. Everything in life follows this basic process. It's through these interactions, and our bodies involvement in them, that we see life the way we do, that we get the direction that we do. It's an out of chaos towards unified order direction. As one considers the physical nature of objects to appear empty, or even all encompassing, entangled, universally interconnected, one should also take in mind things along the order of thought, emotion, concept, identity, etc. If for instance a particle can exist as a wave, universally interconnected, then wouldn't it be reasonable to assume what we understand ourselves to be, our minds, our identities, share the same quality? That our minds exist infinitely, and our body, our DNA, have then provided this relationship, this progression, this evolution, this perspective on it.

I'm quite tired and stoned. I feel compelled to leave it at this for now and attend to the other things in life. I'm not happy with how this linguistic journey turned out. The trouble with this subject is the very interconnectedness that's trying to be defined. It leads to so many directions, so many fields, so many approaches, that it's easy to get swept away in the tide. Will most likely make follow up post even just to satisfy my own obsessive compulsive need for clear conception.

[SageTree]

I really appreciate what you said Zip and am glad you chimed in. Talking about label interconnectedness is a bit absurb, but as long as we keep that in mind, I think we'll be safely perched from the tides and holes.

The only thing I wanted clarify is what I mean when I use the label emptiness.

Simply, emptiness doesn't mean devoid of anything, rather it touches on potentials and posits that everything thing is empty of inherent existence until it's in relation to something else viewed with subjective mind.

That means by saying "it's all empty", what is implied is that equal fullness is laying in wait. There are infinite ways to perceive that fullness, in particular, as you said in the many ways to walk through a door way to your car or to be aware that the flashlight will only illuminate so much and that there could be a whole new word at the level of the creepy crawlies and beyond.

The senses are good for what they are worth and you could certainly walk slower or kneel down to observe and you'd just keep seeing more and more and more as you line of vision opens. And I think this is some what of the place that the 'connectedness' feeling comes from when people are tripping. That is because they actually sit down or move slow enough to 'see' what is happening around them and is a chance we have if we slow our gait just a little bit. Which is one thing I'll say I'm thankful for in being a transit rider and selling the car. I have to slow down.

Thanks Zip.

[verklingen]

right Sage, i really like the phrase "full of emptiness." from the little i've been exposed to it, i clearly see the logic buddhists use to posit a "beginning" of existence in emptiness. i don't think it even has to be dual and depend on a balanced dichotomy of differentiation. the idea of nothingness is its own complete idea, as the idea of being is its own complete idea. they are both "full." there is no relating the one to the other. now, emptiness on the other hand is a concept that is born of subjective relating. . . which is to say it is included in beingness rather than nothingness. emptiness is a medium. nothingness is just. . . nothing!

anyway, because emptiness can be seen as the medium through which existence manifests i'm beginning to regard it like that everything Ziplock starts from. emptiness is the darkness in his field metaphor, and consciousness is the light. emptiness is imprinted with the certainty of consciousness, and it responds obligingly to reveal discreet existence.

[SageTree]

There is no doubt that emptiness is a middle way, since those in the Middle Way concocted it, since it wasn't there before
Of course, the idea is to stay away from extremes and nothingness, which would be akin to nihilism and everythingness, I suppose you'd call it, would fit the eternalist side of the gambit. So I like that.... finding everything in nothing and nothing in everything.... sort of like Felix's bag-o-tricks.

[Bearsy]

I really want to watch these but something keeps coming up. Fuck.

[SageTree]

I really want to watch these but something keeps coming up. Fuck.

What do you mean man? Like a pop up? Nothing like this happened when I view them. Good luck man.

[Bearsy]

Naw, no popups... I just want to sit down and focus on the videos but I can't cause there's distractions happening all around me.