4 ms·

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 h

by 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
I cringed every time he referenced Physics. It's something I've seen other philosophers do in an attempt to legitimize their beliefs by implying that they codify the natural order. In truth, dynamic emptiness has absolutely nothing to do with quantum froth, which could be described using any objects and still make sense. This concept of some unseen physical manifestation of the model arises because of the terms a theoretician chose to identify elements of his mathematical model. They're essentially undefined terms, given meaning by their context in the larger physical system. A lot of people get lost in the undefined terms, thinking that because we use a familiar word for the term, that the item in the model which the term identifies somehow actually exists. Actually there's no proof that the quantum froth exists as physical object, any more than that light is somehow both a wave and a particle. Rather, wave/particle "duality" is a consequence of different mathematical models which happen to generate results which are consistent with observation. The "duality" doesn't actually exist, and the way light behaves is so incredibly nuanced that people dedicate their lives to modeling and testing it. Waveness and Particleness are models which produce mathematics consistent with the natural world. In the cases where more than one mathematical model fits the same set of observations, scientific controversies arise. A Physical theory is accepted when the mathematical model produces results which are consistent with observation, and sufficient experimental work has been done to rule out other mathematical models with overlapping explanatory power. My thermodynamics professor opened all of his classes by saying "Everything I am about to tell you is a carefully constructed series of lies."
- jjb123 12y ago
  Truth is not to be found by picking everything to pieces like a spoilt child. -from this very article
  - Steven_Bukal 12y ago
    Why not? Picking everything to pieces is exactly what those people (theoretical and practical scientists) who seem to have the most success in approximating truth do. These are the methods that best produce accurate predictions about the future and best produce designs for new technologies that actually work.

by ajani 12y ago

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

I cringed every time he referenced Physics. It's something I've seen other philosophers do in an attempt to legitimize their beliefs by implying that they codify the natural order. In truth, dynamic emptiness has absolutely nothing to do with quantum froth, which could be described using any objects and still make sense. This concept of some unseen physical manifestation of the model arises because of the terms a theoretician chose to identify elements of his mathematical model. They're essentially undefined terms, given meaning by their context in the larger physical system. A lot of people get lost in the undefined terms, thinking that because we use a familiar word for the term, that the item in the model which the term identifies somehow actually exists. Actually there's no proof that the quantum froth exists as physical object, any more than that light is somehow both a wave and a particle. Rather, wave/particle "duality" is a consequence of different mathematical models which happen to generate results which are consistent with observation. The "duality" doesn't actually exist, and the way light behaves is so incredibly nuanced that people dedicate their lives to modeling and testing it. Waveness and Particleness are models which produce mathematics consistent with the natural world. In the cases where more than one mathematical model fits the same set of observations, scientific controversies arise. A Physical theory is accepted when the mathematical model produces results which are consistent with observation, and sufficient experimental work has been done to rule out other mathematical models with overlapping explanatory power. My thermodynamics professor opened all of his classes by saying "Everything I am about to tell you is a carefully constructed series of lies."

jjb123 12y ago
Truth is not to be found by picking everything to pieces like a spoilt child. -from this very article
- Steven_Bukal 12y ago
  Why not? Picking everything to pieces is exactly what those people (theoretical and practical scientists) who seem to have the most success in approximating truth do. These are the methods that best produce accurate predictions about the future and best produce designs for new technologies that actually work.