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PLEASE NOTE: I AM NOT THE AUTHOR OR A CO-AUTHOR OF THIS WORK
However, I commend to you this brilliant paper by Peter Eastman, written in 2014.
What's wrong with Philosophy? Nothing, but it is the post-moderne philosophers that have lost touch with the legacy of ancient wisdom, in which lies the key to the locked Self.
The abandonment of the principles of epistemology, most notably Critical Thinking in modern scholarship and education, has rendered philosophers impotent to affect real metaphysical inquiry and a meaningful understanding of one's existence; one's ontological dilemma.
Of course, no-one wants to discuss the bull in the China shop: the stampede to concept and fallacy reification in 21st-century academia. Or, do we?
The Humanities are under attack from without, probably due to the expensive drivel and meaningless, self-serving output that Ivory Towers churn. Perhaps the answer is in the deceptive methodology (a posteriori logic), the vacuous speculations, overt manipulation and dissent ping-pong which have provided fruitful pickings for scholarly enterprise; Ivory Towers must be maintained and defended, at any cost, it seems.
Perhaps pay-rolled philosophy professionals portray pointlessness purposely?
You are invited to join the discussion group as one looks forward to your comments and contributions.
In Xenia.
JW
If you find this research proposal intriguing and are interested in joining forces, I would be delighted to discuss the project's finer details at your earliest convenience.
I have delved deeply into the realms of cognitive science and the profound teachings of Buddhist philosophy which is based on the "Abidhamma Marrgaya" link attached for your reference.📷අභිධර්ම මාර්ගය.pdf Inspired by these two fields, I am embarking on a unique research project that seeks to model the mind through the lens of Buddhist principles.
I am eager to invite you to join me in this research endeavor. Your valuable perspectives and academic expertise would greatly enrich the project, making it a truly collaborative and rewarding experience. The primary aim of this research is to explore the nature of consciousness and cognitive processes, drawing from the wisdom and contemplative practices found in Buddhist philosophy.
I believe that combining respective strengths in these areas can lead to novel insights and foster a deeper understanding of the mind.
MINIMAL METAPHYSICAL PHYSICALISM vs. PANPSYCHISMS AND MONISMS: Beyond Mind-Body Dualism
Raphael Neelamkavil, Ph. D., Dr. phil.
Any one kind of smallest substance cannot be fixed upon by any realistic theory or experiment. Everything is in process, in all its near-infinitesimal parts, none of the parts of which ever stops being bodily and hence further processual within. If not bodily, it can only be non-existent, vacuous.
Hence, I hold that physical and biologically physical causal effects are not reducible to any a-tomic or monadic substance, but instead, processual-structurally generalizable to the metaphysically minimally physical level of the processual structure of activity to be found in any existent and in any part of it.
This is to be so just because any physically bodied process should constitutionally and structurally be reducible to its Extension and Change, and because otherwise the process itself cannot exist. This is the basis of Minimal Metaphysical Physicalism (MMP). I shall explain this Extension-Change requirement here in just a few sentences.
Nothing can exist without obeying the physical-ontological conditions of existence, namely, that the entity should be extended (be in Extension), i.e., must have finite parts, and these entities and their parts must exert impacts outwards and inwards (be in Change). Otherwise, there will be only absolute vacuum, non-entity. Extension and Change are the minimal Categories of all existents. Extension-Change-wise existence is Causality, i.e., existent bodily parts constantly cause impacts on a finite number of other similar entities. Hence, all existents are universally causal. A unit of causation with a causal and an effect part is a Process.
Thus, we shift the concentration of physicalism beyond merely physical properties, onto the minimum necessary physical-ontological Categories. Categories are not properties. Properties are admixtures of many ontological universals (ways of being of processes), whereas Categories are the conditions for the possibility of existence.
Processual-constitutionally and structurally reducible but ever finitely novelty-contributive causal effects by both human consciousness and machine-driven intelligence too are physical in the broadly metaphysical sense of being existent in Extension and Change. Hence, there cannot be vacuously transmitted information; it must be based on and transmitted in terms of Extension-Change-wise causally and processual existent energy propagations.
Note also that MMP is not pure physicalism or materialism. It implies only that vacuous existence is impossible. Hence, it does not preclude the existence of the Divine or the development of the psyche into a future-eternal continuity of growth in whatever activity it is involved in. But MMP insists that the Divine cannot be a pure vacuum.
For the above reasons, I characterize as metaphysically less aware and scientistically overloaded all sorts of statements like in: (1) the theories of reduction of information into something mysterious, and (2) careless expressions about the constitution and structure of what is called information while terming information as something non-specific and as different from matter and energy.
Thus, by MMP, even information is based on something non-vacuously existing with finite Extension and Change. If the totality of some physical or biologically physical energy-communications is called information, information does not become something different from physical. But information is not a physical existent, it is just a connotative concatenation of symbolically conceptualized ways of being of energy propagations and material processes. Connotative concatenations of symbolically conceptualized ways of being of matter-energy is not only conceptual but also expressed in terms of symbolic languages. These media may be the various forms of language, including mathematics, computer algorithms, etc.
I argue that this is true of both biologically brain-based and merely physically machine-based information – otherwise, their physical base would have to be vacuously non-existent, after their other causally related components have been recognized as fully causal and physical. A transfer from causal physicality to non-causal non-physicality is impossible.
Anything extended and thus is non-vacuously in existence consists of matter-energy (or, if it is anything else, that too must be extended and active). Hence, the mind / spirit too must be out of something simultaneously extended and active – only that there are stages of differentiation between matter-energy as things and matter-energy as consciousness. In that case, why not we call it all as matter-energy, or at least as extended and changing? This is the version of physicalism that I call Minimal Metaphysical Physicalism (MMP).
MMP agrees with a minimum number of aspects (Extension, Change, and their togetherness as Causality) belongs to crass physicalism and aims to see that the conscious is a fully causal but mechanistically non-reductionist outgrowth that can continue with its own evolution in connection with its environment, whatever the environment is.
Panpsychisms:I discuss in this context also panpsychism in order to veer clear of the ‘non-physical ether’ sort of theories of the nature of information. Panpsychism in general is the school of thought that thinks that either (1) everything fundamentally is but mind / spirit, or (2) everything has a mental / spiritual aspect, or (3) everything will at some time become partially mental / spiritual, or (4) everything will at some time in the future become fully mental / spiritual.
Case (1), as in the previous paragraph, faces the question of why it need not be taken as matter-energy. Case (2) has at least empirical problems of evidence.
Cases (3) and (4) are suspect because no reason may be adduced as to why everything must be mental without the sustaining aspect as extended and active matter-energy. The question is as to why everything discontinues being physical matter-energy or becomes just mental energy, maybe at various levels, without material support to be in and to propagate from.
Note that in all these cases the word ‘everything’ is clearly to be used due to the ‘pan-’ of panpsychism. Moreover, if as in (4), everything evolves into being fully mental, there will then come a stage where nothing more is in the purely non-mental matter-energy form for them to evolve into the mental in a physical manner. The arguments get into an irresolvable vicious circle.
In all these cases, there is the tenable possibility of asking ironically whether there exists in panpsychism any metaphysically, physically, and biologically acceptable criterion by which the otherwise so-called non-mental is to be considered as at least elementarily conscious.
There is a further problem. If everything existent would ever become conscious, semi-conscious, or very partially conscious, it would take an infinite duration of time, (1) given the probable case that everything existed from all eternity, and (2) given the eventuality of the rationally more probable cosmological case that everything is being created in finite or infinite amounts into the mode of physical existence of finite causation. I do not discuss such question here, since the same will be treated in another book-length study. [Neelamkavil 2018 deals with related possibilities from the cosmological viewpoint.]
To put the matter short: Whatever the extent of absorption of everything in the cosmos is supposed be by the mental, the absorption cannot be absolute. The whole physical cannot be converted into mental energy, conscious subtle energy, etc. at any time. That is, the eternal recurrence theory has no basis. At any given time with respect to the local time of any part of the cosmos, the physical aspect will continue to exist, and of course also the mental. The latter will be only in those environments which physically evolve into becoming conducive to the evolution of physical elements into biologically physical beings.
Monisms: Monism is the theory that insists that everything existent must be either fully matter-energy or fully mind. The arguments in the case of absolutely reductionist physicalism and panpsychism apply also here without exception. This is not to speak of mystical monisms like some of the highpoints in Hindu philosophies (I am not speaking of the practice in the Hindu religion which consists of many religions, but of some philosophical trends), some Western philosophies, and above all, New Age religions of universal energy.
In the main versions of Hinduism, somehow the Other and the Self have to be one at the level of absolute truth and different at the level of relative truth. Such a discussion is beyond the purview of this discussion. The argument I suggest below is not so simple as to resist surprising details for further discussion.
If the cosmos and the Ātmán are identical with Bráhman at the level of absolute truth and are somehow different at the level of relative truth, there is much contradiction. If, as physical beings, we can even imagine the absolute truth, then we can have some access to it! In this case, the cosmos and the Ātmán need to be identical with Bráhman. But there are also the pragmatic-level differences, which are unthinkably different from the so-conceived identity!
In this case, in any sort of theory, monism does not work harmoniously with the physical nature of the cosmos.
In this case, in any sort of theory, monism does not work harmoniously with the physical nature of the cosmos.
This much for the time being!
(The section on Monisms and their interpretation in terms of MMP will continue to develop. I shall constantly update this part of the text and wherever it is deemed appropriate.)
Bibliography
(1) Gravitational Coalescence Paradox and Cosmogenetic Causality in Quantum Astrophysical Cosmology, 647 pp., Berlin, 2018.
(2) Physics without Metaphysics? Categories of Second Generation Scientific Ontology, 386 pp., Frankfurt, 2015.
(3) Causal Ubiquity in Quantum Physics: A Superluminal and Local-Causal Physical Ontology, 361 pp., Frankfurt, 2014.
(4) Essential Cosmology and Philosophy for All: Gravitational Coalescence Cosmology, 92 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 2nd Edition.
(5) Essenzielle Kosmologie und Philosophie für alle: Gravitational-Koaleszenz-Kosmologie, 104 pp., KDP Amazon, 2022, 1st Edition.
& so much, many other cases in youtube & internet !
As part of my research for my I am presently collecting personal anecdotes and stories about valuable experiences and skills that have been rendered rarer or even absent by technology.
In your lifetime, did a gizmo make your life worse, not better? I would love to hear from you, so please share your story on this page.
In addition to giving me first-hand reports, my hope is that seeing other people’s experiences will make folks feel less ostracized.
Every living being instinctively yearns to have younger generation(s) ! ?

I want to claim in an article that our Self is a simple and unstable mental representation and not something transcending the neural computation (e.g. a Soul) as it can appear to us.
What are the best arguments and scientific proofs in support to this claim?
For example: what are the best studies showing that:
- The self is not unique and a single brain can produce multiple Selfs?
> schizophrenic patients experience multiple Selfs (we all have multiple Selfs but in these patients this appears more clearly).
> split brain patients can develop the perception of different Selfs in the two hemispheres (Graziano)
- The agency of the self is an illusion?
> For example, we may be induced to make a decision based on subliminal cues but then we would believe that the decision was made independently by the Self. Anything showing that what appear as a deliberated decision of the Self is not.
- Buddhist monks can eliminate the internal narrative of the Self through meditation and experience it as a flow of mental representations (more direct perception of the Mind).
- Anything similar to the Rubber hand illusion.
Many thanks for your help! :)

What are some good sources on the connection between religion and environment?
Mysticism is often treated as the opposite of science. But is it? Please see
"What is life?" question answered such;
Dostoevsky: "Hell"
Socrates: "Agony"
Nietzsche: "The Power"
Picasso: "Art"
Gandhi: "The War".
What is "Life" for you?
I'm interested in both Christian and Buddhist perspectives.
Hello everybody!
At present I'm studying the occurrences of a Cārvāka/Lokāyata stanza in Buddhist and Jain texts. The stanza corresponds to Haribhadrasūri's Ṣaḍdarśanasamuccaya 81:
etāvān eva loko'yaṃ yāvān indriyagocaraḥ |
bhadre vṛkapadaṃ paśya yad vadanti [a]bahuśrūtāḥ ||
It occurs in other texts according to different variants. Apparently the older Sanskrit version is preserved in Candrakītri's Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya where we read:
etāvān eva puruṣo yāvān indriyagocaraḥ |
bhadre vṛkapadaṃ hy etad yad vadanti bahuśrūtāḥ ||
Of all the sources in which this stanza occurs, I unfortunately don't have at my disposal the following two:
- Jinabhadra's Svopajñavṛtti auto-commentary on his Viśeṣāvaśyakabhāṣya: Malvania, Dalsukh (ed. by). 1966-1968. Acārya [sic] Jinabhadra's Viśeṣāvaśyakabhāṣya with Auto-Commentary (3 Parts), Ahmedabad: Bharatiya Sanskrit Vidyamandira. The stanza occurs twice in Part/Vol. 2, pp. 344 and 439.
- Hemacandrasūri's Ṭīkā commentary on Jinabhadra's Gaṇadharavāda: Vijaya, Ratnaprabha and Dhirubhai P. Thakar (ed. by). 1950. Kṣamāśramaṇa Jinabhadra Gaṇi's Gaṇadharavāda: Along with Maladhārin Hemacandra Sūri's Commentary. Ahmedabad: Sri Jaina Siddhanta Society. The stanza occurs once, p. 10.
I therefore ask you if someone can help me by replying to this message with the three Sanskrit versions (if in transliteration, please with diacritical marks) of the stanza as they appear in each of these three occurrences.
Thanks in advance and have a lovely day!
kr
I am on the study of modelling a theory of Buddhist Public Relation based on the cultural Public Relations. though there are some asian communication theories of Prof. Wimal Dissanayaka, Prof. Shelton Gunathilaka
Making the creator supreme is part of the quest for the ego for a super-identity. The ego identifies with greatness in order to glorify itself. This lays the foundation for Narcissism in religious thought.
Eastern zen-inspired world-views depart from the lived (experientially, cognitively, embodied and phenomenologically) assumption that everything is connected to everything else. On an fundamental level there is consequently no difference between me and you. What does this entail for an ethics to be developed?
I'm exploring the ways of identifying the significance a of Sri Lankan social-healing ritual. it possible to get an answer from Cognitive neuroscience or Cognitive physiology?