[Note]
* Original Youtube Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj_i7YqDwJA&t=2s
This lecture was given by Gerald Penilla.
* Script reorganized by BJ Avilla.
If you found any mistakes or misleading information, please let me know at bj.avilla.j@gmail.com.
===
Where Science and Buddhism Meet PART 1
[Part 1]
There seems to be strong parallels between the Buddhist and
scientific way of perceiving and understanding reality. While these
ideas are not exclusively Buddhist, but rather can be found in most ancient
Eastern thoughts. Buddhism seems to resonate quite harmoniously with these
latest scientific discoveries. I wish to illustrate these ideas by first going
over three main terms of Buddhism: emptiness, interconnectivity and the nature of reality. And then drawing the
parallels of these ideas with modern scientific understanding to your right
will be links two sources of this information including links to videos, books,
and websites. The premise of this video is the belief that these two seemingly
opposite modes of perception, not material, material, intuitive, rationalistic,
spiritual and scientific. But actually, two ways of understanding one reality are
two sides of the same coin. A very important thing to keep in mind while
watching is that there lies a large discrepancy how we perceive reality and how
reality actually exist.
[Emptiness]
Emptiness is that which all arises and returns from. Buddha
said that reality arises from emptiness - a non-dual and Infinite source. For
instance, the chair you're sitting on, the computer you're looking at, and even
your body is arising in this moment from emptiness. To better illustrate this,
think of a dream. In this dream, there's an elephant and you, so you think this
is me and that is the elephant. They have the appearance of being two separate
entities. However when you wake up you realize that both yourself and the elephant
are both manifestations of your dreaming consciousness - the source of both
this dream and an infinite variety of other possible dream worlds. Another way
to picture of emptiness is as the page of a book. The page of a book without
words can be understood as being emptiness. While the page itself really has no
message, there are an infinite variety of words sentences and stories that can
be placed upon the page. So emptiness can be understood as a field of potential
in which every possibility arises from. To begin to understand this, we will
have to redefine our understanding of material reality. Well then find out that
this emptiness also known as the Dao in Taoism and the Brahman in
Hinduism seem to strongly parallel the concept of the quantum field within
quantum physics. But first explores the nature of what appears to be material
reality
[The
Parallels: Wave/Particle Duality]
Our reality exhibits as dualistic nature. The matter that makes up
what we experience exists both as a wave or non-material entity and a particle
or material entity. This wave form that particles exhibit has no definite
location within space or time, but can only be understood as being everywhere
all at once spread out through the entire universe. Imagine an apple in your
hand as a particle, this apple exist within a define location in space and time.
For this example your hand and it's waveform, this apple will not only be in
your hand but spread out through all its possible states, but how can this be?
How can something that appears to be solid it at the same time have the ability
to be something non-solid. And how can something that appears to have a
definite location spacing time also be able to exist spread out over a large
region of space. As astounding as this may sound, the experiment that confirm
this has been repeated thousands of times but the same result, and what I first
came as a shock to the physics Community inevitably became a well-known and
accepted fact. The thing that determine whether or not particles behave like
waves or particles was ultimately found to be the very thing that was observing
this phenomenon - human consciousness. If particles quality is not
predetermined but defined by the very mind that's perceiving it. So what appears
to be solid reality is actually just one side of two underlying aspects of
reality that of wave and that of particle.
[The
Emptiness of Atom ]
Atoms are 99 with 12 nines after the decimal point
(99.999999999999) empty space. Again this forces us to redefine how we see
both ourselves and reality. If our bodies and everything around us is mostly
empty space. Then why do things have the appearance and feel like being solid
objects? This feeling of solidity is actually a repulsion or push of other sets
of atoms. Similar to how magnets will repel each other when two similar size
are put together. Our hands feet fingers never really touch anything but are
actually experiencing a repulsive force that gives us the illusion of solidity.
Believe it or not you're not actually physically touching the chair you're
sitting in but rather hovering right above it as the atoms of your chair and
your body repel each other. What really holds everything together and makes
reality appear to be solid is a sea of fluctuating energy not actually anything
physical? Not only is your body mostly empty space but everything you see
experience and interact with is overwhelmingly empty space.
[The
Quantum Field]
In quantum physics we have what's called the quantum field - this
is an electromagnetic field in which all matter arises from. The particles that
arise from this field are not separate but are actually different forms of the
same system, then field of the matter arising from this field are the same
thing.
Einstein
says “We may therefore regard matter as being constituted by the regions of space
in which the field is extremely intense… There is no place in this new kind
of physics both for the filed and matter, for the field is the only reality.
“
|
Imagine turbulent ocean as the field as waves fluctuate
continuously up and down, the very tips of the wave crescents are what matter
and our reality arise from. The rest of the see is out of range of perception
but still exists as potential for matter, so all matter arises and returns from
this field – the field that is a continuous medium spread out through all space
and time. Seemingly paralleling perfectly with the idea of emptiness from this
field arises not only all the particles we perceive, but the very foundations
of each and every atom that holds both ourselves and the universe together.
[Oneness]
The idea Oneness or interconnectivity in Buddhism is the idea that
everything in the universe is intimately interconnected. The idea that we are
separate entities separate from both each other and the world around us is
considered to be an illusion. The true nature of both ourselves and our reality
is that a complete unification or oneness. Let’s see how these ideas parallel
with what physics is now telling us.
[Part 2]
[The Parallels: Quantum Entanglement]
Einstein didn't take well to Quantum Theory. And in 1935 he and a
few fellow physicist wrote a paper under the name of EPR, and they attempted to
disprove quantum theory not only did they further validify but they came across
another strange feature of quantum physics - quantum entanglement. When two
particles interact with each other they become what is called entangled,
developing a special connected relationship with one another. Now when one of
these particles are affected - say by measurement or observation one particle
will reflect the exact same trait as the other instantaneously. No matter how
far apart they are across the room or across the Universe Einstein found this
so strange that he later turned it spooky action at a distance. To understand
how strange this really is but imagine that you and a friend have two
basketballs that have become entangled regardless of how far each of you travel
from one other each of your basketballs would instantaneously reflect anything
either you did to them. This can happen feet away, miles away or even hundreds
of light-years away. In fact entangled particles seem to behave like one
object rather than two, three or many separate objects that they appear to be.
– that’s explaining this strange action at a distance. No matter where their
position in space and time these two particles remain forever interconnected. If
we now go back to the singularity before the Big Bang and which our entire
universe was condensed into a point smaller than an atom we realize all matter
and energy that we experience right now has and always will be entangled or
interconnected. Quantum entanglement seems to point to a true Oneness within
the universe.
[The Quantum Field]
We exist in the sea of energy that connects all atoms from the atoms
that are arising to make this video to the atoms in the birth of a star across
the Universe. To feel that these atoms arise from is spread out through all
space and time and interconnected web. The quantum field is the web that
connects all life, energy, matter and existence into a single system. Everything
we experience has a single interconnected source.
[Mind and Reality]
In Buddhism and many other mystic traditions, the
mind is a sense of reality - it is not just part of reality but is it very
thing that creates it, similar to how dream world creates our dream world. The
idea of a world being outside mind, it would separate from mind is something
that Eastern Traditions considered to be incorrect. In reality all is mind. Nearly
2,500 years after the Buddha, Quantum physicists seem to have stumbled upon the
same truth.
[The Parallels: Uncertainty Principle]
The famous German Quantum physicist Werner Heisenberg realized
that by simply observing the atomic world we were affecting it. He realized it
is impossible to know both and electrons speed and location at the same time.
As soon as an electron speed is measured, it simply does not have a
well-defined location in space; and as soon as electrons location is measured
it does not have a well-defined speed. He called this the uncertainty principle.
This happens not to the
limits of our perception or measuring devices but rather points to the very mirage
like quality of electrons. Conscious observation is
connected with the event that it's observing and actually defines its location
of momentum. Reality is defined by the mind that is observing it. The physicist
John Wheeler considered the Observer such a crucial aspect of quantum theory
that he suggested that the term should actually be replaced with participator
[Participator: Double Split Experiment]
Double split experiment originally created to test the nature of
life revolutionized quantum physics and the way we understand reality. The
experiment involves the device that propels particles through slits and records where they land on the other side of
the barrier. What physicists found was astounding. Particles that were once
thought to be solid we're behaving like waves and how they behaved was depending
upon whether or not they were being observed. When unobserved the particles took on a state of superposition or
infinite potential while when observed particles take on a well-defined
locations within finite possibility.
If we were to theoretically
do this experiment with baseballs when watching the baseballs passing through
the slits we see them land at a well-defined location on the other side. When
not watching the baseballs passing through the slits we see an interference
pattern. In other words when not watched the baseballs behave like waves, going
through both slits simultaneously. It's not until your mind or consciousness define
the baseball position that they even had one. This experiment has been done
thousands of times with the same result - it has been done with particles as
biggest carbon 80 molecules. Reality does not exist without the mind that's
defining it. Without mind reality exists only as infinite potential.
Quantum physicists have now stumbled upon what Mystics have been saying for
over two thousand years that reality is a projection of the Mind.
[Conclusion and Implications]
The mind between science and spirituality at becoming inevitably blur. The concepts interchangeable our enquiry into science and attempted
to gravitate away from all the spiritual religious mystical as inevitably left
us at a doorway in human history. The doorway that could provide the paradigm
shift into a new self-realized civilization. Casting aside the dogmas of
yesterday and bracing A New World Vision in creating a mythology for the 21st
century. To make this transition, we must be willing to question; we must be
willing to break apart the very foundations of our own belief system; we must
be willing to engage in an open-minded inquiry into the true nature of reality.
The implications are profound It ultimately it's in our hands because true
change can only happen from within ourselves. For the sake of all those before
us and all those after, maybe awaken to a new global vision that sees not
hatred but love not division but unity; and not conflict but compassion. I
leave you with the dedication.
May everyone be happy. May
everyone be free from suffering. May no one ever be separated from their
happiness. May everyone have equanimity free from hatred and attachment.
[More To Read]
Cf.) Cheshire Cat Quantum Theory from Allice’s Wonderland.
Other Books written by the lecturer
No comments:
Post a Comment