Our discussion of Buddhism starts with discussing epistemology. Understanding Buddha’s unique epistemology is so immensely important that one cannot hope to understand Buddhism without first understanding its epistemology.
The discussion on epistemology begins with the so-called Mind-Body Problem. As it is defined, the mind-body problem “is a philosophical problem concerning the relationship between thought and consciousness in the human mind and the body.” The issue boils down to the fact that “it is not obvious how the concept of the mind and the concept of the body relate.” “Are the mind and body two distinct entities, or a single entity?”
Furthermore, “in general, the existence of these mind-body connections seems unproblematic. Issues arise, however, once one considers what exactly we should make of these relations from a metaphysical or scientific perspective. Such reflections quickly raise a number of questions like:
- Are the mind and body two distinct entities or a single entity?
- If the mind and body are two distinct entities, do the two of them causally interact?
- Is it possible for these two distinct entities to causally interact?
- What is the nature of this interaction?
- Can this interaction ever be an object of empirical study?
- If the mind and body are a single entity, then are mental events explicable in terms of physical events, or vice versa?
- Is the relation between mental and physical events something that arises de novo at a certain point in development?
These and other questions that discuss the relationship between mind and body are questions that all fall under the banner of the ‘mind-body problem.'”
In philosophy, the domain of the mind-body problem belongs to philosophers called empiricists. Our exploration of epistemology begins with a dialogue between prominent empiricists John Locke and George Berkeley. Their discourse serves as a springboard for our further discussion.
According to Bryan Magee, author of The Story of Philosophy, John Locke (1632-1704), “Although not the first empiricist in the history of philosophy, Locke has ever since his day been regarded as the chief founding father of empiricism and all that flows from it.” In addition to his contributions to epistemology, Locke was also known as the “father of liberalism.” He substantially influenced the Americans and the French in formulating their liberal democracies.
According to Magee, Locke was interested in exploring limitations “to what is intelligible to humans.” Locke thought that “if we could analyze our own mental faculties and find out what they are capable, we should have discovered the limit of what is knowable by us, regardless of what happens to exist externally to ourselves.”
Locke believed that “what we have direct experience of are the contents of our own consciousness—sensory images, thoughts, feelings, memories, and so on.” He was also resolute that “as regards our knowledge of the external world, the raw data, the basic input, come through our senses – we are increasingly in receipt of specific impressions of light and dark, red, yellow, or blue; hot or cold, rough or smooth, hard or soft, and so on and so forth; to which in the early stages of conscious lives, we are not even able to give names. But we register them from the beginning, and remember some of them, and begin to associate some with others, until eventually we begin to form general notions and expectations about them. We started to acquire the general idea of things, objects outside ourselves from which we are receiving these impressions; and then we begin the process of learning to distinguish one from the other.” Furthermore, Locke stressed that “our senses constitute the only direct interface between ourselves and the reality external to us.”
Finally, “Locke came to the conclusion that our notion about what actually exists – and therefore our understanding of the reality of the world – must always derive ultimately from what has been experienced through the senses.”
George Berkeley (1685-1753) was an Irish philosopher. According to Magee, “Most of the famous philosophers of the past have produced a body of work that covers a wide range of problems, but Berkeley is remembered for a single insight which no one since has been wholly able to ignore. Locky was entirely correct, said Berkeley, in saying that all we can ever directly apprehend are the contents of our own consciousness. But in that case, he asked, “What possible warrant can we have for asserting that the existence of these mental contents is caused by things of an entirely and fundamentally different character from them to which we can never have direct access, namely objects.”
Today, humanity is still asking the same question, albeit using contemporary scientific terms. For example, in Closer to Truth, the mind-body question is asked this way, “How does the brain produce the mind? This is one of the most difficult problems in science, because how can physical qualities, no matter how complex and sophisticated, actually be mental experiences? Electrical impulses and chemical flows are not at all the kind of stuff that thoughts and feelings are. The physical and the mental are different categories.”
Indeed, after several hundreds of years of scientific inquiries since Berkeley, humanity continues to wonder, “How is it possible that mushy masses of brain cells, passing chemicals and shooting sparks, literally are mental sensations and subjective feelings? They seem so radically different.“
According to Buddha, scientists are wrong on both counts. Not only is the assumption that the brain produces the mind wrong, but deeming the body and the mind “so radically different” is what Buddha calls the delusional misunderstanding of reality and the root cause of humanity’s existential suffering. In fact, Buddhism exists because Buddha wanted humanity to correct that delusional misunderstanding and liberate us from our existential suffering.
As history has shown, scientific investigations of the mind-body problem over the last few centuries have not borne fruit. Asking the Mind-Body Problem question using modern scientific terms without first changing the mode of inquiry will not lead to answers.
As Nobel Laureate and originator of quantum theory, Dr. Max Planck realized, “Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.” Indeed, he was right.
So, the question becomes, “What is the fundamental difference between science and Buddhism that makes science unable to resolve the mind-body question?”
The answer to this fundamentally core question lies in epistemology. With the help of the prominent historian and philosopher of science, Dr. Menachem Fisch, we come to understand how the delusional misunderstanding of reality is built into our brains “in ways we do not govern.,” and that word-based knowledge does not lead to an understanding of reality as reality is. Furthermore, we will discuss Buddha’s unique epistemology when he provides a new way that all humans have to understand reality as reality is. Finally, we discuss how, through the experience of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara, the delusional misunderstanding of misunderstanding can be overcome to satisfy Buddha’s soteriological goal.
The discussion on epistemology continues in the next post as we explore the question, “How do we know what we know?”
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