[MD] now it comes

[MarshaV]

On Aug 12, 2010, at 9:08 PM, Krimel wrote:

> Marsha:
> It seems to me that quantum theory and buddhism are pointing to the 
> mistaken identity of tits and 'atom' (Democritus&etc.).  Whether it be the 
> eye seeing a tree, a mind thinking of justice, or an bubble chamber 
> imagining an proton (or whatever), it must be remembered that there 
> is an interdependence between what's being measured and the 
> instrument of measurement.  No-thing is substantial. 
> 
> [Krimel]
> Some might argue that both the Gospels and Darwin point to "gradual change
> over time" as God's method of enacting his will. 
> 
> I am wary of the linkages in either case. Accommodating Buddha to Bohr or
> Moses to Darwin are interesting exercises but they require such contortions
> of each over the other that the twisted wholes seem less than the sum of
> their parts. 
> 
> But that's a purely a personal aesthetic judgment
> 
> I have no-idea what you mean by "No-thing is substantial."


Marsha:   
I was thinking more of Nagarjuna writing his dispute that things are 
substantial, substancial meaning existing independently or 
things-in-themselves.  When there is an interdependence between 
what's being measured and the instrument of measurement than 
a things independence has been disproven.  Bohr's concept of 
complementarity indicates that there is an interdependent 
relationship between quantum objects, and their instrument of 
measurement.  Entanglement is all about interdependency.  
You can fuss that there is a religious aspect to Buddhism, but 
I was thinking of its philosophical underpinnings which are 
proving, in the Quantum world, to be quite insightful.

If I am fascinated by Quantum Theory, how could I not be 
philosophically fascinated by Buddhism...  But, I confess to only 
a gnat's eye view, not the elephant's.   

No-thing exists independently.    








> 
> 
> On Aug 12, 2010, at 12:57 PM, Krimel wrote:
> 
>> Marsha:
>> Just for the record, is a pattern a definition, or compilation of 
>> definitions, or something else?   
>> 
>> [Krimel]
>> Bertrand Russell once claimed that the only label he had ever applied to
>> himself was "philosophical atomist". He thought that philosophers argued
>> about the meaning of terms until they got to a point where argument could
>> not provide an answer. The points that elude definition and agreement are
>> philosophical atoms.
>> 
>> I think that "pattern" is an "atom" for you the way I fear "meaning" is an
>> atom for me. It is a concept so fundamental it becomes one of those
>> transparent assumptions that we live by but can't adequately account for.
>> 
>> In my world "pattern," of necessity, involves some kind of persistent
>> temporal relationship. At pattern can be "constant" in time, like
> celestial
>> orbits, or repeated in time like thunder storms, or replicated or iterated
>> in time, like DNA.
>> 
>> Psychologically speaking, (what else did you expect?) life is a system of
>> pattern recognition. All life proceeds by using patterns to maximize
>> meaning. All living things in some sense are engines of pattern
> recognition.
>> We are designed to know good from bad and how to approach or avoid.
>> 
>> It is that fundamental, irreducible, philosophical atom: the valence of
> plus
>> and minus, good and bad; that drive life and the evolution of life.
>> 
>> Pattern recognition, the ability to detect similarity are well as
>> difference, allows us to reduce the uncertainty of DQ and create
>> meaning or SQ.
>> 


 
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