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It is fairly common in zen publications to point out apparent exceptions to an otherwise binary system (i.e. Logical). It isn't seeking validation from science

• lovemenot 12y ago
  Is it now time for this ancient dichotomy to be embraced by computer science? For the sake of argument, if the principles of OOP are: dynamic dispatch; abstraction; subtype polymorphism; and inheritance, what might be the equivalent for Subject-Orientated Programming ? In my view, a charateristic of SOP must be that data is personal and unique. Every single usage of data specifies a new unique identifier. To read is to interpret: is to record a new ID. Here, identity (x==y) gets broken; so another operator is needed (x~=y).
  • tgallant 12y ago
    somewhat tangential to your point of implementing a so-called SOP, I think the discussion of state, as it relates to OOP or otherwise, can result in very philosophical conversations. see here: http://clojure.org/state http://clojure.org/state As an ex philosophy major, immutable state and its implications on identity interest me greatly. I feel like this, and other ideas from FP, could be considered a step toward a so-called Subject-Object Programming paradigm.
• ajani 12y ago
  I re-read the article. Nowhere is it clear that there is even an attempt at invalidating science. He really does seem to be trying to use science to shore up his ideas. Another excerpt: "This is the basis of Zen itself — that all life and existence is based on a kind of dynamic emptiness (a view now supported by modern science, which sees phenomena at a subatomic level popping in and out of existence in a ‘quantum froth’)."
  • jvagner 12y ago
    There are spiritual observations that precede science. Saying that there isn't scientific evidence for anything is simplying stating that there isn't scientific evidence for something YET. And, showing how science has met spiritual observations, down the road, lends credence to the validity of the earliest explorations of existence.
    • derefr 12y ago
      > Saying that there isn't scientific evidence for anything is simplying stating that there isn't scientific evidence for something YET. It can also be a weasel-y way of avoiding mentioning that there is plenty of scientific evidence favouring the null hypothesis when tested against that something. E.g. mind-reading.
    • ajani 12y ago
      What you are saying is: A: If an observation has no evidence, then the evidence is yet to come. B: If an observation now has evidence, it validates the observation. It's circular.
  • lindblombr 12y ago
    He certainly does take a potshot at reductionism and science's prolific use of that thinking: --- While it is refreshing that Zen philosophy is supported in many ways by present scientific knowledge, it is also a critique of scientific thought. The scientific tradition requires things up to be cut up — both mentally and physically — into smaller and small pieces to investigate them. It suggests that the only kind of knowledge is empirical and that the rigid laws of scientific method are the only kind that are valid. Zen implies that this is like throwing the baby out with the bathwater — scientific thinking might be immensely useful, but it also does violence to a meaningful conception of life. It tends to screen out the essential connectedness of things. We live in an imprecise world. Nature is extraordinarily vague. Science promotes the idea of hard, clear ‘brute facts’ — but some facts are soft. A ‘cutting-up’ attitude to life gives us dead knowledge, not live knowledge.---
  • jschwartzi 12y ago
• dedward 12y ago
  In this case I read that purely as saying "It's okay for there to be contradictions - life really is that way, even if you look at science."