The bizarre states uncovered by quantum mechanics resulted in a million popular works trying to distill quantum reality into a world in which multiple states could coincide even at the macro level. We know that this is true at quantum scale, it has been a little harder to swallow at the level of everyday reality.
The logic of Buddhist philosophy
141–150 of 210 posts
Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
The approach in Eastern Christianity (pre-Great Schism groups such as the Orthodox, Coptic, and others) is generally that of Apophatic or Negative theology. "Leave behind the senses and the operations of the intellect, and all things sensible and intellectual, and all things in the world of being and non-being, that thou mayest arise by unknowing towards the union, as far as is attainable, with Him who transcends all…
It's very intersting how St. Dionysius' quote is remarkably similar to Dogen Zenji's Fukanzazengi, the universal recommendations for Zen: "Therefore, put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest. If you want to realize such,…
Yes, there's definitely room for dialogue between Orthodoxy and Zen (and many other eastern religions). In fact, I came to Orthodoxy from Buddhism in college via an excellent class that compared hesychast prayer to yoga. While I haven't read this paper myself, it was written by my teacher and formed the theme of the class I took: http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0350-0861/2008/0350-08610...
Dogen's Shobogenzo is interesting in that he is trying to convey the ineffable by abusing language. Perhaps from the viewpoint of Wittgenstein, Dogen is trying to break the language game. Then again I never got too far into it, so I might be misrepresenting it.
However, it's important to note that in apophatic theology the intent isn't to cut off discourse to the point where talking about God becomes empty of content completely. What saves the Christian from total unknowing is that the unknowable God has made Himself known through the Incarnation; Christ has shown the path to knowledge of the unknowable, which is the way of the cross: to account only oneself as deserving of death and to account all as worthy of the Kingdom. God is thus known in His energies (in a sense, actions) but unknown in His essence.
As such, Orthodoxy does maintain ideas of true and false, but with the twist that Truth is a Person. To conceive of it differently, truth is a relation between persons, in the sense of being the action of humble, selfless love. But I feel like now I'm saying too many words and only obscuring the meaning. :)
Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is possible to give a rigorous mathematical definition of a logic that deals with contradictions and propositions that cannot be assigned a truth value. This has parallels with traditions in Buddhism and helps resolve paradoxes which are problematic for traditional Western logic (e.g., "this sentence is false").
Thanks a lot!! It looked like interesting but I am way too busy for such a long text.
But not too busy to read HN and post questions, it would seem...
Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy
#144Does anyone know any good books with similar stuff in it?
Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
by ' every violation' do you mean ' any violation', ' no violation', ' blue violation'... by 'every violation ' do you mean 'every observance ', 'every miss-fire ', 'every monkey '... you see, apart from the law of non-contradiction language is impossible.
That's just being difficult. The real world does work that way. Take poltical labels for example, liberal, conservative, et al have totally different meanings for different people. Contradictions do exist, just externalizing them in a formal system is lazy.
Not trying to be difficult; just pointing out that language cannot work apart from PNC.
Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
by ' every violation' do you mean ' any violation', ' no violation', ' blue violation'... by 'every violation ' do you mean 'every observance ', 'every miss-fire ', 'every monkey '... you see, apart from the law of non-contradiction language is impossible.
You're being needlessly difficult to no good end. I am not dropping the law of non-contradiction in my comments here, where I speak about logics that drop non-contradiction. And the point you're trying to make here ignores what I said. It is certainly the case that if you permit every violation of non-contradiction, whether or not it violates any other rule, you wind up with nonsense. In no way does that establish th…
sorry if I came across as difficult; honestly not my intention.
Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
by ' every violation' do you mean ' any violation', ' no violation', ' blue violation'... by 'every violation ' do you mean 'every observance ', 'every miss-fire ', 'every monkey '... you see, apart from the law of non-contradiction language is impossible.
That's just being difficult. The real world does work that way. Take poltical labels for example, liberal, conservative, et al have totally different meanings for different people. Contradictions do exist, just externalizing them in a formal system is lazy.
I don't think linguistic ambiguity - while clearly something that exists - is the same thing as what is under discussion in this post.
Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy
#148Central to his teachings is the view that things are ‘empty’ (sunya). This does not mean that they are non-existent; only that they are what they are because of how they relate to other things. Immediately I thought of Category Theory as this statement is a not terrible expression of what CT tries to teach. I'll immediately recommend the paper Numbers Can Be Just What They Have To ( http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/phil/Nu…
Having never really looked at Category Theory (having been convinced by a series of terrible writings by Haskell fanatics that nothing useful comes from studying it ;-) -- this is a beautiful teaser shining some light on why it might be useful for type theory in general (and as applied to computation in particular). So thank you for that!
(And I do mean this comment, I'll be sure to look at the paper too -- but you managed to capture something that enticed my curiosity, which is a great thing)
Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy
#149Central to his teachings is the view that things are ‘empty’ (sunya). This does not mean that they are non-existent; only that they are what they are because of how they relate to other things. Immediately I thought of Category Theory as this statement is a not terrible expression of what CT tries to teach. I'll immediately recommend the paper Numbers Can Be Just What They Have To ( http://www.cwru.edu/artsci/phil/Nu…
This reminds me of Alan Kay's assertion that messaging is more important than objects in OO. I know that when I design, I see the interactions first - they define the objects. If names from the domain fit - fine. Otherwise, invent new names.
(It also reminds me of Alan Kay describes differential functions)
Re: The logic of Buddhist philosophy
#150Very interesting article -- I'm only surprised Gödel didn't make an appearance.