Direction Zero : Koanic consciousness and the "Reality" game
INTRODUCTION
This site is an overview of the author's ongoing research into the ideas
inherent in Taoism and Buddhism with particular emphasis on Zen
and its areas of convergence with Western philosophies,
and modern physical knowledge, method and logic.
It is illustrated with examples of the author's koanic artwork.
Since it attempts to describe the
indescribable, it must inevitably
fall short of its aim.
In this sense it is a directionless
journey to nowhere,
which, nevertheless, it is hoped you will
enjoy travelling.
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“Words are for conveying ideas.
But when the ideas are understood
you
forget the words.
How I would like to talk with someone
who’s forgotten all the words!”
Chuang Tzu (-369 to -286)
“Speak the truth and run”
Voltaire
(1694 to 1778)
“The laws of causation treat of the network,
and not what the network describes”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889 to 1951)
“The most beautiful thing we can experience
is the
mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.”
Albert Einstein (1879 to 1955)
“Irrationality is the square root of all evil.”
Douglas Hofstadter (1945 - )
TAO, ZEN : HISTORY and PHILOSOPHY
TAOISM
was conceived in China
in the lifestyle book Tao Te Ching. ("the
book of the Way, and its power").
He was strongly influenced by the I Ching
("the book of Changes")
written very much earlier by unknown
authors circa -3000 to -1200.
Chuang Tzu (-369 to -286), the successor
to Lao-Tzu,
Leih Tzu was his pupil,
from a marriage with Mahayana Buddhism,
Taoism became (with Buddhism and
Confucianism) one of
the 3 major Chinese lifestyle "religions"
of the time,
and only stopped receiving state support
in 1919.
Today, there
are about 20 million adherents worldwide,
Tao
("the way") is holistic,
through "wu-wei
"
- actively doing nothing (i.e. its suspension in infinite patience).
Core Tao beliefs are that :
- everything exists at the same instant
as the universe it shares,
- the ego is an illogical division of
self from the universe,
- reality is beyond conceptual thought ;
(These ideas are gaining ground in
western science and mathematics,
and are explored later).
Its
symbol
(the combined
yin and yang)
represents all opposites/dualities
(good-bad, black-white etc..) arising mutually ("hsiang sheng") in
dynamic balance,
indicating that nothing can exist in
isolation.
The yin-yang view of the world is serenely
cyclic
Fortune and misfortune, life and death,
come and go forever,
And the whole system is beyond monotony,
As Lao-tzu put it:
(so much for W. Shakespeare !)
Tao is the first cause of the universe,
flows through all things,
Being in harmony with the Tao is the
attainment of compassion,
It is not doing something for reward.
It is the reward itself.
BUDDHISM
was conceived in North India
of the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama (-490
to -410).
His teachings
were "recorded" about
150 years later,
when
Buddhism had already started to diversify
and the
(more fundamentalist) Theravada, beliefs.
However, both (more or less) interpret
his precepts literally as rules to follow.
The Buddha did not appoint a successor.
He believed it pointless,
since buddha-nature is in everybody.
We are all god.
There is no supreme being to judge, or to
be answered to.
All Buddhism talks about
samsara
(the turning wheel of life),
and is not concerned with salvation to a
hereafter.
a
life philosophy
rather than a religion.
Buddhists do not worship the Buddha, but
use his images in temples as a focus
to reflect on his teachings.
The Indian versions look for perfection through
many lives,
using
formal methods of
meditation
to achieve enlightenment.
This contrasts with ZEN (Japan) / CH'AN
(China) Buddhism founded in China
by the south
Indian monk Bodhidharma in about
+520.
It teaches that the wheel is only here and now,
that all beings possess a buddha-nature, often equated with the Void,
and that realization of this fact is
enlightenment (Chinese: wu; Japanese: satori).
This ultimate truth or reality is beyond the
duality of
subject and object
(linear
thought processes) and can only be realized in
immediate personal experience
by not trying /grasping.
Zen (Ch'an) Buddhism was introduced into
Japan in the 7th century,
reaching a peak following in the 12th.
It is Buddhism of the mind, practiced in
the world's midst.
Two branches of (Chinese) Ch'an Buddhism
developed in the 9th century:
Lin-chi (Japanese: Rinzai) and Ts'ao-tung
(Japanese: Soto).
Enlightenment is to be obtained by
different methods.
The former use the kung-an (Japanese:
koan
a paradoxical question or aphorism with
no linear answer,
to facilitate the realization that all
conceptualization is "unreal".
The latter emphasize the practice
(Chinese: tso-ch'an; Japanese: zazen)
FURTHER ASPECTS OF ZEN PHILOSOPHY
Semantics, Mindfullness, and Objective reality
Zen is a core Buddhist philosophy about
"nothing"
and by implication therefore also about
"everything".
It is this
self-negation
that captures it's essence.
One aspires to overcome /by-pass intellect -- including the ideas of Zen !
It is a demonstration of the
circularity
of conceptual thought
"things, out
there" as being separate from oneself and from
each other.
Zen seeks to
transcend this conventional knowledge,
which is bound by our belief in a world of
"things".
Its notions of not-self, interbeing,
impermanence, emptiness, and mindfulness
do not describe the objects of knowledge, they reveal the
errors
of this knowledge.
Zen focuses on egoless awareness in the
here-and-now;
on single-minded, non-judgmental
attention to the task in hand, for its own sake.
Nothing is good or bad, meaningless or
meaningful, ...
It is believed that this "mindfulness" releases energy that
would otherwise
have been wasted in anger, anxiety,
stress, greed, worry, etc..
It shows the
interconnectedness
of everything ("interbeing"),
and fosters respect and responsibility
for the whole.
If
nothing
exists in isolation, nothing has an absolute identity, or self.
Or, alternatively, Since everything
constantly changes,
- be it on a cosmic,
or quantum scale
(where a particle of matter can be in two places at
the same time)
everything is co-dependent for its
"existence".
This is the idea of
"impermanence",
and
applies to physical matter and the stuff of thought and feelings,
since they too, must be co-dependent.
It implies
that 1 + 1 might = a banana,
that 1 may not be 1, it could be A, ..etc..!,
demonstrating that things are dynamic,
continuously in transformation,
and that concepts of them are static.
To exist, every thing must contain
elements of "not-thing", and in turn
these elements must contain
"not-elements".
All effects are contained within their
causes. (like caterpillar to butterfly).
If not, then the generation of effects is
impossible.
And the idea of generation is therefore
flawed.
There cannot be an object of generation.
Rather, the process is one of continuous
becoming.
Existence flows between instants.
A shoe is also bits of cow, the grass it
ate, the work-energy and experience of its
maker, the latex in its sole and the tree
that provided it, the polish that was put on it,
the shopkeeper who sold it, his entire
family throughout history, the money that
changed hands, the metals in the money,
the bacteria on its surface, ..etc..
ad infinitum.
The existence of the shoe demonstrates
the existence of these "not-shoe" elements.
However, imputing non-existence from the emptiness of inherent existence is clearly incorrect.
For example, just because one cannot
identify "I"
in isolation
it does not mean you (or anything else) do /
does not exist.
Just
stick a pin in yourself !
Words (the stuff of concepts) are inadequate to
"describe"
this reality of emptiness.
It must
be touched by direct personal experience, where the mind reveals itself,
where there is no ego -- no distinction
between subject and object.
It is absolutely
non-intellectual,
outside language.
Once something starts to be explained, it
has already been experienced.
Its true nature (Chinese:
wu-nien)
has gone.
The reality is the experience, it is
nothing about knowledge.
Life is not a representation of life, it
is life.
Mind and matter only exist together. Each is in the other. (pure taoist yin-yang !)
Zen recognizes that one of the major
obstacles to "enlightenment"
is the structure of language itself,
which tricks us into believing that
"duality is reality".
The English language has a convention of
the repeated use of personal pronouns,
and in particular "I", which is even
capitalized to emphasize its "importance".
Whereas, in Japanese, for example, it is
possible to completely avoid the use of
personal pronouns.
To work as a system, English relies on
the concept of opposites
(particularly
emphasizing differences),
promoting a belief that these entities
exist in their own right, in isolation, as
separate
"things".
The true nature of anything is more than can be revealed by words.
It is this "more than" that is to be
experienced.
But, since everything is in a state of
flux, it can only be indirectly pointed at.
Achievement of this "non-conceptual perception" in Zen is very often through shock tactics.
It is believed that
enlightenment can be instant.
The "work" that is required is simply
mindfullness in one's everyday life.
Mindfullness is to concentrate solely on
the doing of life, as it is done.
It is to live one's actions in the
instant,
without impatience,
with no thought-pollution from what else
you could or plan to do.
It is primarily achieved through
self-conscious adoption of slow, even, and quiet
breathing which produces an uncluttered
and clear mind.
Such practice is ideally carried out at
all conscious moments :
when sitting, walking, washing the dishes, using the toilet, playing chess.....
Repetitive tasks can in addition be
synchronized with counting the breath,
and (for example), when walking, with the
steps taken.
It can also be helpful to view each
action as unique (which, of course, it is),
as special, as "the most important thing
in your life". Almost as a ritual.
The habit of mindfullness needs
continuous application to be effective,
and is considered the only way in which
to be prepared for enlightenment.
In Zen monasteries,
shock tactics
are tailored for each individual by the master.
But the student, through the practice of
mindfullness,
must also be receptive to
enlightenment
at this time.
Both, either, or neither can fail the
moment (the window).
Any method to enlightenment is considered
valid.
Many Zen masters use the method of the kung-an (Japan : koan),
which is usually presented under the ever-possible threat of a loud shout,
or a blow from a stick, to rack up the tension.
A kung-an /
koan might be defined as
"a paradoxical question or aphorism, with
no linear answer".
There is no
secret hidden inside it.
It cannot be reduced to concepts.
It must be "felt /realized" intuitively,
in an instant.
It is its own effect, and doesn't wait to
be realized.
The associated arts of haiku and haiga
take a similar approach.
The Zen philosophy is experiential, a way
to live mindfully and practically
inside the pragmatic aspects of Buddhist
teachings.
It is to find an egoless reality and the
humility it carries.
It is to become that reality, and it to
become you.
Consider also that : anything "meaningful" written or said about Zen must itself
be koanic,
since enlightenment (like the Tao) cannot be transmitted
by words or thought.
At this point you become the kung-an, and
the kung-an is enlightened !
This is the Tao of Zen.
RELATED ZEN ARTS
HAIKU is a minimalist poetry form
popularized in the 17th century
It evolved from the 31-syllable tanka
form dominant in the 8th century,
and is often associated with Zen
practice.
In its original form it has strict rules,
but since English is so different from
Japanese
now live in rural settings,
A classical haiku has the following
structure (at least in part) :
- brevity
[one to three lines totalling 17 syllables or
less].
- three lines
["ideally" with a 5-7-5 syllable structure].
-
juxtaposition
[2 elements or lines indirectly relate to a
third].
-
descriptiveness
[it doesn't prescribe or tell].
- it can be read aloud in one breath.
- it avoids traditional English poetic
forms, such as rhyming and metaphor.
The American polymath Douglas Hofstadter
(1945 - ) prof. of cognitive science
at Indiana University has stated that :
“Meaning lies as much in the mind of the
reader as in the Haiku”,
whilst the haiku dictionary, Gendai Haiku
Dai-jiten (Meiji Shoin 1980), states that :
"a (modern) haiku, be it composed in
Japanese, English or any other language,
is what the person who has written it
presents as a haiku."
Traditional Japanese HAIGA involves brush
art work
a haiku written in brush
calligraphy.
Like haiku, the focus is in
simplicity
of expression.
Modern haiga
(art + haiku)
a juxtaposition between
the haiku and the art work,
which do not necessarily directly
represent each other.
The art work can be
anything
: computer generated drawings, photos, etc.
TAI CHI CHUAN is a system of Chinese zen
(ch'an) meditation exercises,
which has a basic 18 positional
movements.
the full "course" can take (more than?) a
lifetime,
like
manipulating swords
It's a lot about breathing from the
abdomen, and body movements made from
a static position... ...a sort of
animated yoga... ..or slowed down kung-fu !
It is gentle, rather than violent, and believed to balance the body's
natural energy
It could be considered an art form (a
"ballet" with a purpose but no audience),
along with other Taoist offspring such as
: kung fu, acupuncture,
cultivation,
Consider the following topics and ideas
in relation to the Zen-Taoist views stated above:
QUANTUM MECHANICS AND OBJECTIVE REALITY
From Einstein (1879-1955), energy is equivalent to mass times light speed squared.
But , as we have seen above, in the sub-atomic (quantum) universe
the relationship between mass and energy is not so precise.
Thomas Young (1773-1829) showed
that light is both a wave and a particle,
and that light particles can interfere with each other.
And in 1982 physicist Alain Aspect and his
team showed that subatomic particles,
such as electrons, are able to instantaneously
communicate with each other
regardless of the distance separating
them.
and that a photon (a light "particle")
can travel as a wave
through two places at the same time.
This result has been repeatedly and
independently verified.
It violates Einstein's idea that no
signal can travel faster than the speed of light,
because it means breaking the "time"
barrier.!
Louis de Broglie (1892–1987) showed that matter can be described as waves
with infinitesimally small frequencies, and that all
matter waves to a certain extent.
Later quantum physicists showed that the waves emitted from a particle
cover the whole universe,
and their crests show where the particle
is most likely to be at any given instant...
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (1932) states that sub-atomic (quantum)
particles of matter flit in and out of existence,
and only when observed /measured do they
"freeze" into existence.
That is, no physical phenomenon is describable as a
"classic point particle" or
as a wave.
Essentially - Observation changes the
nature of the Observed.
be known at a given instant, its future cannot be determined.
Kurt Gödel's (1935) Incompleteness
Theorem basically shows that :
"there exist meaningful mathematical statements that are neither
provable nor
disprovable, now or ever,
because the very nature of logic renders
them incapable of resolution."
It would seem therefore, that the implications of quantum mechanical
experiment and theory, along with Gödel's incompleteness
theorem,
are that we will never be able to explain
consciousness.
That is, reach an understanding of the universe through measurement,
observation and the use of symbolic
(linear) logic,
particularly
since logic is the product of an objective, self-referencing system
Is not every
word in a dictionary defined by another word
This latter paradox (word uncertainty
principle) is attributed
to Epimenides,
If I am lying, then it is
false, and if I am not lying, then it is true.
Zen koans rely on similar "logic" to kick
start the realization of our underlying nature.
It is also self-evident (without recourse
to Gödel's mathematics)
that one cannot use a human brain to
analyze /research a human brain.
Something of a higher order of "magnitude" is needed, of which ipso facto,
we can never
conceive by
linear (sequentially processed) means.
HOLOGRAMS AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Data received from sensory organs produces the mental images
/ perceptions
which make up our apparent reality.
Whatever gives rise to this data must
exist separately from our perception of it,
outside of the mind.
This implies that there is an underlying
reality which we never directly perceive.
Interpretation of air movements as sound,
light frequencies as colour,
2D stereo images as 3D space and
distance, etc. only happen in the mind.
Emmanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) argued that
space
and
time
are not
characteristics of the underlying
reality, but of the mind.
Matter and substance, space and time, seem to be the way
in which the mind makes sense of the
no-thing-ness of the underlying reality.
This is also the view of the Taoist with his /her
"Void
"
from which everything arises, and to
which everything returns.
The "reality" of existence is apparently
not matter, but mind.
Consciousness is primary .
Asking how the material world gives rise
to consciousness,
is trying to account for consciousness in
terms that are
themselves manifestations of consciousness.
It only makes sense to ask how
consciousness gives rise to the material world.
Physicist David Bohm (1917-94) believed
the reason sub-atomic particles
remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them
(as stated in quantum mechanical theory)
is because their
separateness is an illusion.
He argued that the particles are not individual entities,
but extensions
of the same fundamental something,
thus
implying that all things in the universe
are infinitely interconnected in a
seamless web.
that despite its apparent solidity the
universe is a gigantic hologram.
Every part of a hologram has been shown
to contain
all the information possessed by the
whole.
This is also a
characteristic of
fractals.
because the concept of "location" means
nothing, if nothing is separated.
Reality becomes a "superhologram" in
which the past, present, and future
all exist simultaneously.
In the 1920's Karl Lashley showed that
the ability of a rat to perform complex
learned tasks was not lost whatever part
of its brain was removed.
In 1983 neurophysiologist Karl Pribam
proposed that the brain is a hologram,
and that memories are encoded in patterns
of nerve impulses
akin to laser light interference
Holograms possess a huge information
storage capacity,
and are adept at encoding and decoding
frequencies.
So if the concreteness of reality is a
holographic illusion,
it is consciousness that creates the
appearance of the brain, the body,
and everything else around us that we
interpret as physical.
And not the other way round.
it is
subjective and infinite.
It seems no coincidence that most Eastern
religions / life philosophies
believe that although we seem to be
physical beings moving through a physical
world, this is an illusion.
FRACTALS
Fractal (Latin : fractus - "broken" or
"fractured") was defined by the mathematician
Benoit Mandelbrot in 1975 as an irregular self-similar shape (geometrical object),
which however much magnified or reduced,
repeats itself (iterates) in
identical detail
ad infinitum.
It cannot be represented by classical
(Euclidian) geometry.
A fractal is a graphical image that
represents the behaviour of a mathematical equation.
They are used for illustrating the
regular features of complex objects and patterns,
and allow order to be perceived inside
apparent disorder.
For example, a river has tributaries,
which have tributaries, etc.
A tributary has the same organization as
the entire river, but over a smaller area.
Other examples are : Tree branches and roots, blood vessels,
plants,
snowflakes,
nerves,
clouds, lungs, feathers, landscape with peaks and valleys,
aggregates, spider webs, coastline with
inlets and peninsulas,
turbulent flow vortices, ferns,
populations, movement of economic indices,
the distribution of mass within a galaxy,
Natural objects are random versions of
mathematical fractals, and are statistically self-similar.
Fractal
maths
offers models of the processes that produce natural objects /
structures.
Fractals
are seen in pre-computer art such as : paisleys,
mandalas,
and stupas.
Most
fractal computer art
starts with a small section of a simple fractal image,
which is repeatedly sectioned and
re-magnified.
of the known universe and beyond.
The mathematics are infinite,
computer precision limits the possibilities.
TIME
This is clearly a very complex issue.
Only a small fraction of
man's attempts to unravel it are here presented.
St Augustine
(354-430) argued :
"When we say that an event or interval of time is short or long,
what is it that is being described as of short or long duration?
It cannot be what is past, since that has ceased to be,
and what is non-existent cannot presently have any properties, such as being long.
But neither can it be what is present, for the present has no duration".
He also argued that the present must be timeless (without interval / duration)
because, in an interval of any duration, there is a beginning and an end.
He (along with Parmenides, Achilles, Aristotle, Leibniz, McTaggart, Heidegger, etc.)
also adopted a subjective view of time, that time is nothing in reality
but exists only in the mind’s perception of reality.
Time is therefore some kind of a “extension” of the mind which
allows us to simultaneously grasp the past in memory, the present by attention,
and the future by expectation.
Thus, only present objects and present experiences
can be said to truly exist.
There have been many opposite theories, mostly
variations on the ideas of
Newton (1642-1727), Barrow (1630-1677), and Clarke
(1675-1729) who believed time to be
an imperceptible dimension in which sequential events occur everywhere at the same pace
and which can only be understood mathematically.
They believed that we can only perceive "relative time" (a measure of moving objects, such
as the hands of a clock) which leads to the
assumption that time passes.
An interesting modern
variation goes like this :
What we see in the present is motion. Motion occurs
over an interval.
Therefore: What we see in the present occurs over an
interval.
If the present was a durationless instant, we would
not see anything at all,
since the speed (distance over time) of light and
sound are finite.
And since the speed of nervous transmission is also
finite,
we must only ever perceive what is past. (whether
durationless or not).
Clock (Newtonian
/conventional) time
has no causal link to subjective time (except by co-incidence).
It is presumably accepted as the appropriate measure of time
because, for most people, one second of subjective time roughly corresponds
to one second of clock time.
It may also be because the variability of subjective
time is more easily regarded as
the illusion, whilst the time of conventional physics (clock time)
offers a more comfortable "real" order from natural
chaos.
The Indian Veda texts (2nd
millennium BCE) teach that the universe
has repeated cycles of creation, destruction and rebirth.
Hence the idea of the “wheel of time” (Kalachakra), which can be seen in mandalas,
and is a key concept in Hinduism and conventional Buddhism.
The Greek Orphics and Pythagoreans, the Peruvian Q'ero Indians, the Central American Mayans,
and the North American Hopi Indians (among others
worldwide) were/are also believers.
As indicated
previously, the Zen view is to trust in nature's subjective time
as the basis for existence / "reality".
Clock (objective) time is seen only as a construct,
a convenient collective illusion, upon which society
is based.
Time does not
pass... This illusion arises from
dualistic linear thought patterns,
- mental step-sequential processing - which creates a
fantasy of past and future.
By definition, the past is gone, the future never
comes.
What is left can simply only be "now", in
timelessness..
Nowness can't exist in an objective sense,
it is "between" instants : It was now just now.
Lewis Mumford
wrote in 1947 :
whose "product" is seconds and minutes, helping to create belief in an
independent world of mathematically
measurable sequences: The special world of science.
There is little foundation for this belief in a common human experience:
Throughout the year the days are of
uneven duration,
the relation between day and night
steadily changes,
and a slight journey from East to West
alters astronomical time by several minutes.
While human life has regularities of its
own, the beat of the pulse,
the breathing of the lungs, these change
from hour to hour with mood and action,
And in the longer span, time is
measured by the events that occupy it.
If growth has its own duration and
regularities, behind it are not simply
matter and motion but the facts of
development: in short, history.
And while mechanical time is strung out
in a succession of mathematically
isolated
instants,
organic time is cumulative in its effects.
Organic time moves in only one direction
--
through the cycle of birth, growth,
development, decay, and death --
And the past that is already dead remains
present in the future
that has still to be born."
It is a basic premise of Einstein's
special relativity theory that
and so moves faster in space.
The faster an observer travels, the
slower time passes.
Thus, since time is relative, there can no universal
"now".
Perception of time appears not to be
associated with any particular sense.
We cannot perceive temporal order that
differs by less than about 20 milliseconds.
We perceive such changes (events) in time
in the present /now.
LogTime is the idea that subjectivity
is the logical (mathematical) basis for
estimating time intervals,
since it seems to explain the “quickening passage of time” that is associated with ageing.
This closely follows an arithmetic
progression (logarithmic scale).
Whereas clock time follows a geometric
progression.
The idea that subjective time is related
to information-processing
was first suggested over a century ago.
It assumes that subjective time is based on the overall biological information-processing rate,
and that the subjective experience of
life’s duration is related to the total information processed.
The faster /slower information is
processed, the more /less experience is accrued,
the longer /shorter the experience of time for those events.
It is interesting to consider that
subjective time,
based on the concept of
information-processing rate,
is objectively
“real” !
Experience of time duration lengthens
/shortens as body temperature
increases /decreases. And decreased
/increased body temperature
causes a decrease /increase in
information-processing rate.
Other phenomena also affect time
sense :
A
sudden change in the rate of a pacemaker (pulse rate)
can cause a highly altered time
experience.
Brain tumours and Alzheimer's disease can
slow our internal clock,
and events then appear to occur very
rapidly,
making it too fast to judge time, and to
comprehend everyday activity.
Sudden accidents can trigger detailed
memories of whole lives
Dreams
that seem to take hours are only a few clock minutes.
And, since all experience is viewed
objectively as having a chemical basis,
there naturally exists may drugs that can affect
perception,
including time sense.
ZEN AND THE NEW MATHEMATICS
objective reality, number theory, artificial intelligence, &
semantics.
Typographical Number Theory (TNT)
is a formal axiomatic system describing the natural numbers that appear
in Douglas Hofstadter's (1997) book Gödel,
Escher, Bach : An Eternal Golden Braid
It is an implementation of Peano arithmetic that
he uses to help explain Gödel's incompleteness theorems.
Like any system implementing the Peano axioms,
TNT is self-referential.
but still manage to get away with it.
Relying on words to lead you to the truth
is like relying on an incomplete formal system
to lead you to the truth.
A formal system, no matter how powerful,
cannot lead to all truths.
The dilemma of mathematicians is : What else is there to rely on but formal systems ?
The dilemma of
the Zen people is :
What else is there to rely on but words ?
Mumon (1183-1260) in his 48 koans called
the "Gateless Gate", states the dilemma clearly :
"It cannot be expressed with words, and it cannot be expressed without words".
The semantic aspects of "form" in
patterns cannot be tested for in predictable
lengths
of time (as is also the case for TNT string theoremhood),
because an objects meaning is not
localized within the object itself.
As time passes more meaning unfolds,
forever.
Typographic Number Theory (TNT) can talk
about itself ("perceive")
but it cannot jump out of ("transcend")
itself.
A computer program can modify itself
("perceive")
but cannot violate ("transcend") its own instructions.
Self transcendence is the central theme
of Zen.
But Zen is a system, and cannot be its
own meta-system.
There is always something outside of Zen,
which
cannot be fully understood or described
within Zen.
Gŏdel's Incompleteness theorem, Church's
Undecideability theorem,
Turing's Halting theorem, and Tarski's
Truth theorem all have the flavor -
To seek self-knowledge is to embark on a
journey which will always be incomplete,
cannot be charted on any map, will never
halt, cannot be described.
I would say that we are all in the same
boat as the Zen master who,
after contradicting himself several times
in a row,
said to the confused student : I cannot
understand myself.
Propositional Calculus states that
"either/or" is the same as "if not/then", so :
Either a cloud is hanging over the
mountain,
or the moonlight is penetrating the
waves.
is the same as :
If a cloud is not hanging over the
mountain,
then the moonlight is penetrating the
waves.
This may not be Enlightenment, but it is
the best that the Propositional Calculus
has to offer.
Zen is holism carried to its logical
extreme.
If holism claims that things can only be
understood as wholes and not the sum of
Zen goes one
further in maintaining that the world cannot be broken into
parts at all.
To divide the world into parts is to be
deluded, and to miss enlightenment. "
EMERGENCE and PRECOGNITION
“when the complexity of
exceeds the finite capacity of the
scientist,
the scientist can no longer understand
the system.”
In a 2005 paper discussing "Emergence",
Paul Davis (1946 -)
aggregations of sub-atomic
particles (basic matter) can produce
radically different manifestations -
such as a rock, a baby, a high
temperature superconductor, etc..
That is, unexpected qualities that
cannot be predicted from an examination
of their constituent parts, often arise
from complex systems.
This is contrary to the "reductionist"
(standard) scientific view of things,
which implies that if you knew the
position and motion of every particle in the
universe and the forces acting between
them, you could perform a massive
calculation and predict the future in
every conceivable detail.
This implies unlimited computational power.
However, since the universe apparently originated 13.7 billion years ago,
it is not believed to be infinite.
This, therefore puts a limit on the
predictive precision of physics,
and implies that there are gaps where our
physical laws cannot completely
determine the future states and
properties of some physical systems.
This
concords with
Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle,
Turing's Halting Theorem, Gödel's
Incompleteness Theorem,
Tarski's Truth
Theorem, and
Church's Undecideability Theorem .
Indeed, Seth Lloyd (1960 -) has shown
that
any calculation requiring more than 10120
bits (of information) is a fantasy,
because the entire universe could not
carry it out in the time available.
100 amino acids, of which there are 20
different kinds.
This gives a total number of 10130
combinations,
and when their shapes (which determine
their functions) are taken into account
the number becomes 10200 combinations -
both figures being well in excess of the
Lloyd limit of 10120.
This implies that not all properties of
life are calculable (predictable).
Similarly, considering the connection
between "our reality"
and the amalgam of different "realities"
(so-called superpositions) in the quantum
(sub-atomic) world, the number of
components in a mere 400-particle super-
entangled state exceeds the 10120 limit
of predictability.
Therefore, since all states in our
physical world are continually changing in some
way, these examples from biology and
quantum mechanics imply that :
Life is written into the laws of Nature
(an idea first claimed by the biochemist Christian DeDuve in 1917).
The laws of classical (reductionist)
physics are not immutable,
and are affected by the (observers) world
"reality" !
This is the principle of Strong
Emergence,
which states that there exist hitherto
overlooked "organizing principles"
(akin to the concepts of the Tao?)
that arise as
system complexities
increase.
And John Wheeler (1911 - 2008) proposed
in 2006
that the laws of physics actually evolve
in a way analogous to Nature's Natural
Selection (Darwin's theory).
Such principles might be the bridge
between the seeming disparity between
our perceived "reality" and that of the
quantum world of which it is composed.
Akin to Strong Emergence is the question of Pre-cognition.
It is believed that reality is woven from strange, "holistic" threads
that aren't located precisely in space or time.
and
called "spooky action at a distance" by Albert Einstein.
Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961) dubbed this peculiarity
"entanglement", calling it the
characteristic trait of quantum mechanics.
Until recently, it was accepted that
elementary particles could become fleetingly
entangled, and have no practical consequences for
our macroscopic world.
We are now finding that there are ways in
which the effects of entanglements
"scale up" into our macroscopic world.
Entangled connections between
atomic-sized objects can persist over many miles.
(A so-called "paranormal" or "psi"
phenomenon).
Some suggest that conscious awareness
is caused or related to
entangled particles in the brain.
Some even propose that the entire
universe is a single, self-entangled object.
May (2003 -) has clearly shown that under strictly controlled conditions,
true random number generation by a
computer can be influenced by human
thought to become statistically non-random
!
And Todd et al. (2005), have shown, using
NMR brain scans, that
"thought communication" is associated with activation
of specific brain areas in the
recipient.
This leads to the question as to whether human free will exists.
It
seems that we misunderstand the nature of causality,
since we can know the outcome though it
is ostensibly not yet determined.
At the core level, these experiments
probe the nature of time,
since the fundamental equations of
physics are time symmetric.
The physicist Russell Targ (1934 -) believes that what seem to be separate
and distinct loci of consciousness (in human brains)
are
all part of the same fabric of consciousness. They are undivided.
The apparent transmission of information
from mind to mind is illusory
because our minds are not separate.
This reflects the Zen and Taoist
philosophies of existence.
A FEW MORE WORDS FROM ALBERT
are perhaps
"enlightening" and surprising :
"The distinction between past, present
and future,
no matter how persistent,
is merely an illusion."
"Imagination is more important than
knowledge."
"The true value of a human being is
determined primarily
by the measure and the sense in which he has attained
liberation from the self."
"The
religion of the future will be a
cosmic religion.
It will be based on experience, which
refuses the dogmatic.
If there's any religion that would cope
with scientific ideas
it will be
Buddhism"
"Try not to become a man of success
but rather to become a man of value."
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a
minute, and it seems like an hour.
Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and
it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
THE AUTHOR
bob harbinson was born in England, UK
and has died many times since.
He was educated at Cambridge University in the mid-60’s.
Following this he was a freelance fashion photographer,
a company c.e.o in W.Africa, an English teacher in Vietnam,
a novice Zen monk in Japan, and an apprentice acrylic artist
in Thailand, before
to concentrate on his research, artwork, and writing.
Current interests include : perceptual illusions,
spontaneous humour, brush calligraphy as art,
astro-physics, quantum biology, scientific method and logic,
cryptography, and psi phenomena.
This book overview is dedicated to my
wife Cen GuiYing
without whose encouragement it
could not have been produced.
TOPICS INDEX (links)
Intro & Quotes Zen, Tao History & Philosophy Related Zen Arts
Quantum Mechanics & Objective Reality Holograms & Consciousness
Fractals Time Zen & the New Mathematics
Emergence & Precognition Quotes from Einstein Author Biography
ARTWORK INDEX (links)...
Concept, design, poetry, photos, and
other graphics,
Copyright © 2017 :bob harbinson and Silver Pipe Productions S.A.,
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