Buddhism and quantum theory are one and the same

-I am happy to use the established definitons derived from Descartes.
Esthablished? Come on, Descartes' ideas are perhaps understandable in the context of his time, but who takes religious and determinist philosophers seriously these days?

THEN WHAT DEFINITIONS DO YOU USE? Without definitions meaningful communication is impossible as you are amply demonstrating. Actually the Cartesian defintions are accepted generally as the provisional definitions to be used when engaging in the sort of philosophical discourse I am attempting to have with you. Once again I must ask to know what are your definitions. If you wish to use alternative defintions you must indicate what thay are so I can understand you. Not to do so is stupid, because it means you can say whatever you please. I will demeonstrate what I mean:

DO YOU UNDERSTAND THIS - Matter outside mind upsets uncertainty is nonexistent. NO - why not - it is a construction made up of ordinary words - I've just given them my own definitions which I will not inform you about! - This philosophical procedure on your part is arrogant and stupid at the same time - no communication is possible without definitions. So if you give me your defintions I will continue this debate seriously. Without knowing what your words mean it makes no sense to continue. As the Buddhist master Chandrakirti said - the wise do not dispute with the insane. To expect to debate meaningfully with someone with your own hidden definitions is insane.

Furthermore you are constantly demonstrating your ignorance in all the areas of discourse you think you are being so clever in. Descartes defintions are generally used, where they are not the reasons are generally indicated. The only exception to this is Dennett - who is pathological (a bit like you really - he makes up his own definitions).

-As when I showed that a large number of eminient quantum physicists support the viewpoint that the nature of reality is mind not matter
Once again, this doesn't matter. Some quantum physicists may even believe in a god, does that mean gods exist? Of course not.

THEN WHAT DOES MATTER IN DEBATE - you seem to accept no other opinions except your own prejudices. Anyway your original claim was that these quantum physicists did not say that the nature of reality was mind - I clearly demonstrated you to be wrong. Whether it matters or not you were wrong.

-Philosophers who do not reach this conclusion, such as Dan Dennett and friends, can easiliy be shown to be incoherent.
But you haven't shown that I am incoherent. You just keep reiterating your arguments based on authority.

I have clearly shown you are wrong in most of your assertions - anyone capable of evaluating the evidence can see this to be the case.
If you give me your logical reasonings proving that quantum physics indicates that 'matter' is funadamental rather than 'mind' - TOGETHER WITH YOUR DEFINiTIONS OF YOUR TERMS - I will show that you are incoherent.


-The concept of 'matter' is also metaphysical.
No. If I say "matter is all the particles in the universe" then this implies they can be measured.

IT SEEMS YOU THINK YOU CAN SAY WHATEVER YOU WANT - precisely because you use your own definitions. But without knowing your definitions your words are meaningless.

However I shall try, again, to resurrect a grown up philosophical debate with you. The following is a claim by a respected quantum physicist - Deiter Zeh:

Quantum theory does not require the existence of discontinuities: neither in
time (quantum jumps), nor in space (particles), nor in spacetime (quantum events). These
apparent discontinuities are readily described objectively by the continuous process of
decoherence occurring locally on a very short time scale according to the Schrodinger
equation for interacting systems, while the observers increase of information is
appropriately represented by the resulting dynamical decoupling of the corresponding
components of the global wave function.

This is the abstract from his 7 page paper THERE ARE NO QUANTUM JUMPS, NOR ARE THERE PARTICLES!. This paper is easily available from the internet. As you clearly disagree with him it should be possible for you to read his paper and state your points of disagreement with him employing the same mode of discourse accepted in general by the community of quantum physicists that he, and I had hoped you, are a part of (i.e. using the same definitions).

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Matter and energy are just different manifestations of the same thing. Energy comes in packets which are carried by particles.

Sheesh, take a chill pill mate. I will look for the article and read it if I have time.

-I agree, therefore the .wavefunction is encompassed by "1" and "2" at the same time and not solely by "2" as clearlight proposed.

The wave function cannot have be encompassed in anyway by 1) because 'matter' (which is 1)) is DEFINED to be completely external to the human mind - not contacting the human mind in any way - not having the capacity or functon of interacting with a sentient mind. If you want to propose a new definition of 'matter' - one which encompasses its capacity to interact with a sentient mind then your new definition will not be at all similar to the 'classical' view of matter. As all the early quantum physicists and as far as I can see all current quantum physicists agree such a wavefunction based definition of matter requires that it is not an external feature of reality it is an experience based concept - matter is EXPPERIENCE of a particle nature within reality. Therefore, as all the physicists I have quoted during this debate assert, the new defintion of 'matter' must ascribe to it aspects of mind. So, as Henry Stapp and David Bohm amongst others say, our concept of 'matter' must move towards mind, it is no longer a view of an external structure of reality independent of human, or other, minds. All this can be found in papers on the internet.

With such an EXPERIENTIAL concept of matter then your assertion that

wavefunction is encompassed by "1" (matter) and "2" (mind) is corrrect. BUT IT IS NOT CORRECT WITH THE DEFINITION I ORIGINALLY GAVE. THis is obvious - the wave function is not 'solid' and not 'extended in space'. It is potentiality for certain experiences to occur.

I do not think you will find a current quantum physicist who would seriously disgree with this. If you can I would like to know because I would need to take account of his or her views in my book.

But I still cannot see how the theory produced by our friend clearlight can offer a scientific explanation regarding the relation between my body/ energy and my consiousness as discribed by the mentioned Eastern philosophy;

It does not give a scientific explanation - my book shows that they are philosophically speaking saying the same thing (Buddhism obviously does not provide equations). For instance the structure of quantum theory and the Mind-Only three natures are, as I show, homomorphic. More details can be found at www.quantumbuddhism.com. Read one of the essays - the one about electrons hovering between existence and non-existence for instance. If you find something that you thing is dubious let me know and I will explain! My book shows that quantum physics and Buddhist philosophy when rigorously examined and cogently interwoven on the basis of clear interconnections provides a scientifically based metaphysical comprehension of the functioning of reality.

I think your problem may be that you have taken too many chill pills and as a consequence have lost the capacity for philosophical rigor!

Originally posted by clearlight
-I agree, therefore the .wavefunction is encompassed by "1" and "2" at the same time and not solely by "2" as clearlight proposed.

The wave function cannot have be encompassed in anyway by 1) because 'matter' (which is 1)) is DEFINED to be completely external to the human mind - not contacting the human mind in any way - not having the capacity or fun ...[text shortened]... ifically based metaphysical comprehension of the functioning of reality.

To say that Buddhism has known quantum theory centuries ago, is like saying that the ancient greeks knew atom theory.

Yes, the greek used the word atom, 'individable', but they knew nothing about the periodic table. Now we even know that the atom is indeed dividable into smaller component.

But if this make anyone happy to believe that Buddhism invented quantum theory, so be it. It's their religion, but it's not their science.

Do you know the details of the Chittamatra and Yogacara Mind-Only plus the Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophies?

The Everett analysis of the universal wavefunction clearly suggests that sentient beings are subjective experiential aspects within the universal wavefunction who 'cycle' through it as suggested by the Buddhist notion of samsara. As Bohm points out there will be a hierarchy of implicate orders within the wavefunction. One very deep implicate order will be what the Buddhists call the 'subtle' mind which carries karmic seeds throught he bardos.

Originally posted by clearlight
The Everett analysis of the universal wavefunction clearly suggests that sentient beings are subjective experiential aspects within the universal wavefunction who 'cycle' through it as suggested by the Buddhist notion of samsara. As Bohm points out there will be a hierarchy of implicate orders within the wavefunction. One very deep implicate order will be what the Buddhists call the 'subtle' mind which carries karmic seeds throught he bardos.

Human beings are able to work towards elightenment within their karmic bounds and conditioning because as Kalu Rinpoche says:

It is very important to understand clearly that although karma conditions our experiences and actions, we still enjoy a certain measure of freedom – what would be called free will in the West – which is always present in us in varying proportions.

We have free will in line with Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The injection of free will into Everett's many worlds derives from Michael Mensky, Lockwood and others, Mind-Only Buddhism and the necessity of the Heisenberg uncertainty.

Originally posted by clearlight
Human beings are able to work towards elightenment within their karmic bounds and conditioning because as Kalu Rinpoche says:

It is very important to understand clearly that although karma conditions our experiences and actions, we still enjoy a certain measure of freedom – what would be called free will in the West – which is always present in us in v ...[text shortened]... nsky, Lockwood and others, Mind-Only Buddhism and the necessity of the Heisenberg uncertainty.

As clearlight seems to be obsessed with what physicists think, Penrose has suggested that "the human mind might be the result of some kind of quantum-mechanically enhanced, "non-algorithmic" computation" (quote from Wikipedia).

Yes I know - but he also says quite clearly that:

at the large end of things, the place where the buck stops, is consciousness...

this is from Shadows of the Mind.

His quantum computation speculation has no evidence and as I show in my book his Orch-OR model is incoherent. In fact I am writing a paper about that very fact at this very moment.

To get all the detailed evidence and arguments you would need to get my book when it is published. However I will think whether I can post something onto my website before. My problem is that I cannot give the full details out before I have a publisher - experience has suggested to me that even Buddhist academics might inadvertently approprate other peoples work.