Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Logical reasoning

The premise of this blog is using mainly logical reasoning to map out the philosophical interactions between physics and Buddhism.

Logical reasoning has its limits, that it cannot arrive at the truth on its own. If the premise is false, the conclusion can be false.

Logical reasoning as well as 9 other sources (divine revelations, traditions, rumours, scriptures, on the view that it seems rational, reflection on mere appearances, agreement with one's own opinions, authorities or experts, one's own teacher) are said by the Buddha to not be relied upon as sole sources of the truth.

Only via experience, experimentation should a truth be discerned. I hope you would bear that in mind as you read all the rest of this blog.

Yet, there are other traditions who has meditated and reached a different conclusion with respect to Buddhism. The reason that Buddhism claim is that the others let their likes and dislikes to a certain view to colour their conclusion.

Thus to gain enlightenment, you'll have to let go of all the views explored here. They are not conducive towards enlightenment. The only role I hope for these articles is that it inspires enough faith in you to draw close to a teacher, to sit nearby, to lend your ear, to listen to the Dhamma, to remember it, then test the meaning, testing the meaning, things are approved of, being approved, there arose desire, with desire, you make an effort, with the effort, you weight it up (contemplate), having weight it up, you strives, finally being self resolute, you realises the highest truth.

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Kamma in Bohm's Interpertation

This post is a sequel to previous two posts, the Karma-Quantum Interpretations-Bell's inequality, and Physics needs Buddhism. I am still reading the book "Time Reborn" by Lee Smolin and the second part is quite heavy in terms of food for thought, so I decide to just run the articles as I read along.

I'm reading now about Smolin's preference to the hidden variable interpretations of quantum physics, lead by de Broglie and Bohm. The reason behind the preference of this as the more fundamental explanation to quantum theory is to do away with the inherent randomness of quantum physics which violates the principle of sufficient reason. The principle of sufficient reason means that any reasonable questions should have an answer. Intrinsic randomness (without cause) is the ultimate bummer to this principle, there is no reason for the result to happen, it just happened to happen! Recall in the Karma-Quantum article, I mentioned that from a superficial outlook, karma in Buddhism which rejects no causes for things to happen and super-determinism seems to favour the hidden variable theories. This article explores this line of thinking further.

Smolin posits his own version of the hidden variable versions, that is real-ensemble interpretation. The usual ensemble interpretations involves interaction of single systems with imaginary group of ensembles and the usual sampling from statistics explains the randomness in quantum theory. Smolin modified this by rejecting the interaction with imaginary groups (which violates the principle that nothing outside the universe can act on something inside it), and says that the group that quantum systems compare to does not have to be local. Now it has been proven that local hidden variable are not possible in nature, so all hidden variable theories includes non-locality. Thus, the example of an electron would have it's copy of ensembles far away, but the universe has many of those identical fundamental particles. However, when it comes to macroscopic things like humans, we are unique, therefore there is no exact copy elsewhere in the universe and thus the quantum effects disappears.

Before he presents his theory, he speculates that the hidden variable inside quantum systems that determine the results of measurements are inherently linked to everything else in the universe via the principle of maximum freedom. This principle is that quantum physics maximizes the amount of information you need per choice. It describes the universe which can have probabilistic predictions of how systems behave where the systems has as much freedom from determinism as any physical system described by probabilities can have. So in the sense that quantum systems are free, they are maximally free. It means that the properties of each particle in the universe are maximally tied up in hidden relations to the universe as a whole. (Sorry a lot of direct copying of his exact words, I find it hard to paraphrase and still mean the same thing.)

Now onto the creative part. If we use a naive approach and directly input kamma as part of the mechanism or relations that describes these relational hidden variables, how can that help in the research in Physics from the interaction between Physics and Buddhism?

So having just thought about it, here is my naive conception of how this might work out. Below are just an overall plan, with no details of the theory, just an outline of the direction of research to work out for the idea.

From the previous post of Physics needs Buddhism, I had argued for the inclusion of mind-matter interaction relations to be described in Physics before any theory can claim the title of theory of everything. Kamma can enter into Physics via the hidden variables version of quantum physics.

First we need to know how the physical world affects and influences the mental world. This ranges from studies of biology, neuroscience (how the physical world affects the brain which in turns affects the mind), to psychology and a bit of Buddhism. Most importantly perhaps is if Penrose's speculation that the mind is quantum mechanical, is true, then this would be a major contribution.

Second, is how the mind takes the data input from the physical world and processes it to eventually translate it to further actions (kamma). This is the part where Buddhism can help fill in the blank, because it is how mind interacts with mind itself. The dependent origination and Abhidhamma explained in the previous post exactly addresses this gap.

Third is to see how action (kamma) translates to changes in the hidden variables. This is one of the mind-matter interactions which is a variable theory to be discovered and researched. Some complications may present itself here. Kamma is not only physical actions and speech, it includes mental actions. How does this translates to hidden variables is anyone's guess. However, one can speculate that mental thoughts is correlated with electrical signals in the brain, and thus can investigate how that affects the hidden variables (maybe mainly around the brain) was modified from there and how it changes a human.

Conventional kamma action theory from Buddhism can help in a rough guide here. Conventionally, what we put out in the world, goes around and changes it a little, so that it is no surprise if it comes back and hit you one day. That's social kamma. Also there is psychological kamma, which is just like the book the Secret. What you think about, you are getting prepared for it, eventually, when the opportunity comes, you'll get it naturally as much easier as compared to you not having thinking about it. But the most mysterious part of kamma is the one that just says, doer of good deeds will get their results when the conditions are right and vice versa, even onto the next life and beyond. This kinds of posits an imaginary account for kamma which the individual carries around all the time until the results ripen. In fact, Mahayana Buddhism has the eight consciousness just for this, the storehouse of kamma. The potential of relational hidden variable theory is to put this imaginary account onto the physical world or at least provides a relationship to the physical world which somehow puts the theory of how kamma works on a more rational (possibly predictable) and less mysterious track. But to complete this theory, we need one more element.

Fourth, we need to see how the hidden variables that was modified by kamma interacts with other hidden variables and comes back to hit the doer of the kamma. And this would link back to the first knowledge above, completing this chain. This might be the hardest part to figure out as it is purely a physical phenomena on unobservable quantities. The theories constructed on this part must be tested together with theories constructed for the third part and best estimates from the first part to fit in with the second part (which we currently take that Buddhism works well to describe the theory for the mind) to reproduce the description of how kamma works in Buddhism (which for this case we assume to be true and the goal of the research). So for the best case scenario that the first knowledge can be obtained from neuroscience quite well, we have four parts of a theory, 2 known, 2 unknown to equate to 1 description of kamma, which is known. We have one degree of freedom here.

I would suggest that this degree of freedom be modified to test against predictions from this theory on supernatural observations. No, I am not talking about fictional accounts of ghosts and such beings, nor claims that has been proven to be fake. We should only consider cases where it has been well documented, long standing cases which cannot be easily explained away by conventional means. And also employ experienced frauds, skeptics and neutral scientists to decide the cases to consider.

Another feature is that I believe the theory of how rebirth happens might have to be written down (or better yet, predicted from the previous theory) somewhere to guide the construction of the theory. Then the theory can be modified to fit accounts of cases of rebirth claims that has been verified which numbers thousands of data. Using this, we might be able to produce the physics of supernatural beings, predict the workings of kamma and rebirth on a person and so on to construct experiments and further test the theories.

One example of how kamma might work is that each time an action is done, it shifts the hidden variable around the doer a bit. However, habitual kamma can accumulate the shift to be significant so that it comes back to the doer in a heavy force. Being non-local, kamma may also not be stored around the doer, but actually affects the whole universe.

Another power of this description is that the concern raised by Sean Carroll here about modifying the equations of physics to fit in interactions between mind and matter is addressed. Physics at everyday scales need not change, we only need the seemingly random results of quantum measurements. We need them because they are actually a complicated play of mind-matter interactions.

Now, I hope that this article shows that the dialogue between Buddhism and Physics can drive a certain direction of research in Physics. If you are uncomfortable with thinking that Buddhism as a religion, think of the statements from Buddhism as working hypothesis or conjectures by learned ancient scholars, or one wise dude (the Buddha) who has no intention to convert anyone, just to discover the truth to live a happier life and share it.

There are just two warnings for those who wants to pursue this. First, the relational hidden variable theories may not be correct. This is one fair warning, but it never stopped theoretical physicists before. Second, The Buddha did put up a warning that to contemplate the exact workings of kamma may make one go insane. But he also said that about thinking of the origin of the universe, and this didn't stop cosmologists from discovering almost everything right down to just after the Big Bang. It might be that these statements were true to the people of that time. (Imagine them having to learn/discover modern physics first before able to start to think about these questions.) We might have some advantages due to the advances in theory made in the past. Yet, to be fair, we still do not know the origin of the universe for sure yet, thus, it might be possible that we may also not ever be able to complete the plan outlined above to complete satisfaction.

Anyway, once again I apologize for the large number of assumed knowledge of Physics and Buddhism on the part of the reader and my laziness to cite things I mentioned here. I'll do it next time.

Thursday, May 8, 2014

Physics needs Buddhism

Physics has been wildly successful in describing the physical universe. However, the answer to what is consciousness and the mind differs if you ask one physicist to another. There is this reductionism tendency to regard the whole is just the sum of it's parts, thus the mind is psychology, which is applied neuroscience, which is part of biology, which is applied chemistry, which is applied physics. Thus fundamentally, the mind is subject to physics laws and principles.

This view can no longer hold sway, as we discover and acknowledge the science of chaos, which states that it is not possible to predict deterministic outcomes in chaos situation. And the science of complexity, which studies the emergent properties of systems at the edge of order and chaos. Implicit in the assumption of emergence is that the emergent phenomena does not influence the more fundamental phenomena from which it is emergent from, but the other way around is true. Biological systems which reverses local entropy has to be an open system, but the concept of life has no impact on physics.

In the book time reborn by Lee smolin, he advocated some principles for building a true cosmological theory that describes and explains everything in the universe. The problem he finds with the current cosmological models is that there can be many fundamental quantum gravity laws that fits into the approximate theories of quantum, general relativity, and standard model. Not only that, there is also the freedom of choice for the initial conditions in cosmology. The thing is, we only have one observable universe. Thus the laws might easily apply to many different kinds of Multiverse which can be in principle unobservable.

This he says is the problem of applying the Newtonian paradigm to the whole universe. The Newtonian paradigm is to do Physics in a box. That means isolate a subsystem of the universe and then change the initial conditions in it to deduce the laws that apply to that phenomenon. Once we have the laws, we can predict all future and the past of the system with only information about the present. (In principle, the dynamics of quantum physics is deterministic until measurement, which is interaction with something outside the box, thus if the system is truly isolated, the wavefunction should not collapse.) Lee says because at least gravity is not blockable, no system within the universe is truly isolated, we cannot draw a box and assume that all that is in it is changing, but outside things are not changing. Thus he proposed that a true theory of the cosmos should dispense with Newtonian paradigm and describe the relationship of change between all things in the universe, no exceptions allowed, not even the differential structure of curved space time, or symmetry. He even elevated this to a principle, the principle of no unresipocated action.

So taking that principle and using it on the most basic fact of life we experience everyday, we see that the mind and matter has interactions between them. Matter affects the mind, this is clearly seen everytime we eat something good and felt happy, also the condition of the brain affects how our mind functions. Mind also affects matter, our decision to eat meat drives the economy of may production which contributes significantly to global warming, the connections in our brain is also rewired depending on how we train our mind.

A theory of everything cannot leave out this obvious fact of life. The interaction between mind and matter has to be figured out regardless of the philosophy and theories of what anyone has about what is the mind. It maybe same as the brain, it maybe the heart, it maybe a whole new separate thing, it may also be emergent. All these doesn't matter much in the exploration of the laws of the interaction between mind and matter.

It is wise to employ a tool of the mind to study the mind just as we employed matter to study matter. Meditation, a practise that has been secularly and scientifically confirmed to be effective in letting the user observe oneself and becoming happier is the ideal tool for the studies of the mind.

The idea is to gain a working knowledge of the laws of the mind, then see how the mind influences matter and the other way around.

So far there is no Buddhism in this discussion yet, now I am bringing it in.

Buddhism features amazingly detailed description on how the mind works. Most notably in the Abhidhamma, where the mind is classified to consciousness and mental factors. The model is linear in time, each consciousness arises for one thought moment before disappearing and the next one replaces it. Each consciousness is accompanied by several mental factors that drives it. According to the Theravada Abhidhamma, there are 89 or 121 different types of consciousness and 52 mental factors. Consciousness includes mostly functional aspects of the mind, wholesome and unwholesome mind and also states of deep meditation. Mental factors includes hatred, loving-kindness, feelings, perception, wisdom, delusion, and also volition. Having the basic building blocks, the Abhidhamma also describes what are the thought processes that arises from the input of our 5 senses and the subsequent analysis of the 6th sense, the mind itself to sense mental objects. So thoughts are mental objects and can be endless and infinite. What's more amazing is that the relationship and interactions between the mind itself, mind and matter, and between matter itself are described. 24 conditionality, which can be condensed into 4 are what links causes to effects. 

There is also the links of dependant origination. From ignorance is conditioned volitional actions, which conditions rebirth consciousness, which conditions mind and matter, which conditions the 6 sense bases, which conditions contact, which conditions feelings, which conditions craving, which conditions attachment, which conditions actions for becoming, which conditions birth, which conditions death, decay and suffering. It is primary concerned with the mind, but there is the clue on how the mind rebirth consciousness conditions which mind and body that the new life inhibits. This is one of the crucial links between mind and matter that should be considered and included in any theory ambitious enough to want to explain the cosmos. Implicit here is the assumption of the facts of rebirth, which many with a western, materialistic, and Abrahamic faiths and education would have prejudice against. My opinion of it is that it has enough empirical evidence to warrant it a naturalistic fact and scientific attention, unbiased thought, analysis and experimentation.

So far it is in my view that in order to advance Physics, the theories about the mind and it's interaction with matter cannot be ignored. Having found the analysis of exactly these in Buddhism, I conclude that more physicists and scholars of Buddhism should work together to crack up a theory that can be tested by scientific studies so that even the anti religion people would have to agree with the findings.