What is reality?
The following are the top three definitions of “reality” on dictionary.com:
- The state or quality of being real.
- Resemblance to what is real.
- A real thing or fact.
In all three cases, the noun “reality” is defined by its adjective, “real.” Without a third party as a reference, this circular definition of using an adjective to define the noun shows that “reality” has no intrinsic meaning.
Indeed, the seemingly simple question ‘What is reality?’ with seemingly apparent answers has, in fact, been a profound and enduring concern for humanity since the time of pre-Socratic Greek philosophers. For thousands of years, humankind has intuited that the phenomenal reality they inhabit is transient and not quite as real as it appears, yet the reason for this has remained elusive.
1) Pythagoras of Samos is a pre-Socratic ancient Greek philosopher known for his eponymous Theorem. Pythagoras was a polymath who influenced Plato and Aristotle and, through them, Western philosophy in general. Famous scientists, such as Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, and Albert Einstein, all professed some degree of influence from Pythagoras in their works. Pythagoras was thought to have coined the term “philosophy” and used the word “cosmos” to describe the universe. Additionally, according to Bryan Magee, the author of “The Story of Philosophy,” Pythagoras “was the first person to have the idea that all the workings of the material universe are expressible in terms of mathematics.” Indeed, Pythagoras’ insight was profound, as the modus operandi in contemporary science is “that all the workings of the material universe are expressible in terms of mathematics.”
2. Thales of Miletus was another influential pre-Socratic ancient Greek philosopher. “He was one of the Seven Sages, founding figures of Ancient Greece. Many regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek Tradition, breaking from the prior use of mythology to explain the world and instead using natural philosophy. He is thus otherwise credited as the first to have engaged in mathematics, science, and deductive reason.”
However, the question that most occupied his mind was, “What is the world made of?” Unable to find an answer, he theorized that everything must ultimately be reducible to a single substance. While he was wrong in deciding that the substance was water, his insight that material reality is ultimately reducible to one element is quite impressive, as it is compatible with Buddha’s teachings.
Since ancient Greece, humanity has depended on observation to investigate reality. However, understanding reality based on observation has never been reliable and is often subject to change.
Euclid was an ancient Greek mathematician and was considered the “father of geometry.” His geometry is called “planar geometry” because he thought the earth was flat based on his observations. Later, when scientists found the earth spherical, they expanded Euclid’s planar geometry to non-Euclidean geometry, which significantly helped navigations around the globe.
In the Middle Ages, geocentrism, the idea that the earth was at the center of the universe, with the sun, moon, stars, and planets revolving around it, was the predominant view regarding the shape of the universe. However, in the sixteenth century, Nicolaus Copernicus, a Renaissance astronomer and Catholic cleric, overthrew the idea and presented a mathematical model of heliocentrism, suggesting that the earth evolved around the sun. Galileo Galilei then provided supporting evidence through observation through a telescope.
Modern scientific understanding of reality started with Newton and his Classical Mechanics theory. For his Classical Mechanics theory, Newton needed forces to act between physical particles. However, finding no precedent for his ideas, Newton decided to invoke the name of his God and suggested God created everything he needed.
According to author Fritjof Capra of The Tao of Physics, Newton wrote the following in his Opticks, “It seems probable to me that God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which he formed them; and that these primitive particles being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them; even so very hard, as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God himself made one in the first creation.”
The author added, “In the Newtonian view, God had created, in the beginning, the material particles, the forces between them, and the fundamental laws of motion.”
While Newton’s mechanical universe worked exceptionally well for hundreds of years and is still in use today, his methodology of investigating reality changed significantly from that of scientists before him. Instead of observation, Newton started by assuming that the reality he desired was created for him by his God. From there, Newton formulated his theory of Classical Mechanics. Newton then used observation to verify the correctness of his theory. Whether “solid, massy, hard, impenetrable” particles even exist in nature was never explored.
Physicists after Newton enthusiastically embraced his methodology and formalized it as the Scientific Method. Like Newton’s methodology, the Scientific Method starts with an assumption from which a theory is formulated. Experiments are then conducted to verify whether the results confirm the hypothesis. Like Newton, the focus is on proving whether the proposed mechanisms can correctly explain how nature functions using mathematics but not on the nature of reality itself.
In this video, Absolute Truth on Big Think, Dr. Sylvester J. Gates offered his opinion on this methodology and said, “All we can do in science is construct theories, and that means, for example, that what we are ultimately doing is not about the truth…..Science is not about finding the truth. Science is about making our beliefs of nature less false. These are two different things.”
In their efforts to make the beliefs of nature less false, physicists have advanced their methodology by defining a concept called energy.
According to this article, energy, “in physics,” is a “quantitative property that is transferred to a body or a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat and light. Energy is a conserved quantity—the law of conservation of energy states that energy can be converted in form, but not created or destroyed.”
As a man-made quantitative property transferred to the physical universe, energy is a numerical quantity, not a reality in nature. However, by assigning quantitative properties to a body or a physical system, the Scientific Method makes it possible for “all the workings of the material universe to be expressible in terms of mathematics,” as Pythagoras predicted.
But what about reality? What about Thales of Miletus’ insight that material reality is ultimately reducible to one element?
Indeed, Thales of Miletus was right that materiality is ultimately reducible to one element. However, that one element is not material but mentality. Furthermore, the knowledge about mentality does not come from science but from Buddha.
Dr. Max Planck, a 1918 Nobel Laureate in Physics, understood both. After his entire professional career originating and developing quantum theory, he famously said.
- “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
- “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.“
Dr. Planck’s view is compatible with the role consciousness plays in the Copenhagen Interpretation, which says that “reality is an illusion” and “believes that reality does not exist without an observer to observe it.”
Indeed, Buddha teaches that consciousness is fundamental and involved in manifesting reality and that science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. However, Buddha also teaches while the scientific method cannot solve the mystery, individual scientists can. Indeed, if Dr. Planck had learned direct perception and practiced it successfully, he could have been the first Noble Laureate Buddha.
Understanding why that is the case requires knowing Buddhist epistemology.
Understanding Buddhist epistemology is crucial to understanding why Buddhism is uniquely the only “-ism” to understand mentality is the Ultimate Reality of nature. Only when Buddhist epistemology is properly understood can one understand why delusional misapprehension is extential. Only when one understands Buddha’s epistemology can one know why anyone can become a Buddha.
Our discussion on epistemology begins with the dialogue between Dr. Robert Kuhn, host of Closer to Truth, and the prominent philosopher Dr. Mehachem Fisch, on “How Do We Know What We Know.” This fascinating discussion exposes what most humans do not understand about the limits of human knowledge.
According to Dr. Fisch, human knowledge is “not empirical facts” and has more to do with “how these concepts relate to each other.” Human knowledge is so limited that, at the end of their dialogue, Dr. Kuhn asked Dr. Fischas, “What prevents you from cascading into skepticism where we can’t know anything? Everything is related to something else. I have no foundation between what I believe and what the world really is. So, how do I know anything?” Indeed, human knowledge does not inform “anything” about “what the world really is.”
So, what is the difference between empirical facts and knowledge?
Empirical facts are the raw data of nature sensed by the five human sensory organs: eyes, ears, noses, tongues, and bodily parts. In Buddha’s mental universe, these invisible raw data are the experiential content embedded in the mental construct of everything in nature. They inform “how things stand in themselves.”
However, once the raw data enters the human mind, it gets conceptualized “in ways we do not govern,” according to Dr. Fisch. Conceptualization causes the invisible raw data to appear as the visible “the world we experience,” in Dr. Fisch’s words.
The uniqueness of Buddhist epistemology is that Buddha teaches that direct perception of empirical facts can avoid the conceptualization process. When the conceptualization of raw data is prevented, then the raw data of nature leads to understanding “how things stand in themselves” instead of how concepts are related, which is what knowledge does.
Indeed, it does not matter how much effort and resources are put into studying the landscape of consciousness; human knowledge allows only understanding its taxonomy rather than a definition. But without a definition, what is the taxonomy of consciousness of? As Dr. Planck said, “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.“
With all realities “Nothing but Mentality,” direct perception naturally resolves all the long-unsolved mysteries regarding consciousness, such as “Why is Consciousness So Mystery? “Is Consciousness Ultimate Reality? ” “Is Consciousness Fundamental?” “Does Consciousness Require a Radical Explanation?”
Buddha resolved these mysteries because he perceived empirical facts directly, which led him to teach a cosmos that differed drastically from the scientific one.
Original image- https://wmap.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/121236/121236_NewPieCharts720.png
The scientific cosmos consists of a lone universe bifurcated into a 95.4% “dark” realm and a 4.6% atomic realm. While the atomic slice refers to the familiar phenomenal world, the “dark” slice is not “dark” because of its color but because “dark matter and dark energy are mysterious substances that affect and shape the cosmos, and scientists are still trying to figure them out.” In other words, it is “dark” to scientific investigations and human knowledge.
Buddha’s universe consists of two realms of mentality: quiescent and fluctuating. They are both “dark” to scientific investigations and human knowledge. A Buddha is amidst the three-body setup because only an enlightened person using direct perception can understand the mental cosmos, of which humanity is a part. As Dr. Planck understood, “We ourselves are a part of the mystery that we are trying to solve.“
The quiescent realm, which Buddha deems the Ultimate Reality, enlightened and luminous, is equivalent to the scientific “dark” realm (Link pending).
The realm where mentality never stops fluctuating, known as “non-luminosity (link pending)” in Buddhism, is equivalent to what science calls the quantum realm. While mentality fluctuates in Buddha’s field and energy fluctuates in the quantum field, Buddhism and quantum physics both teach that their respective fluctuating fields are the foundational blocks of the universe. Therefore, while the reality of a quantum world is “abstract and nebulous,” the fundamental reality in Buddha’s world is consciousness.
Non-luminosity is equivalent to the quantum realm because, like energy, active thoughts are also quantized, coming in small amounts, one after another. Another significance is that Buddhism and quantum physics intersect precisely at an epiphenomenon (link pending). Epiphenomena is important in Buddhism because Buddha’s foundation doctrines, such as consciousness, causality, the observer/observed duality, delusion, suffering, etc., all debut on it. These are essential for humans to understand because, having originated from epiphenomena, delusional misunderstanding of reality, suffering, causality, etc., are all existential as they come along with consciousness for the journey in life. However, one can never learn them in science, and the consequences are substantial.
Like the quantum realm, Buddha’s non-luminosity is the “simplest thing” in Buddha’s universe, where “empty space is not empty.” However, by infusing consciousness into the scientific quantum realm, Buddha’s non-luminosity solves many problems that have been long unsolvable in quantum physics.
With non-luminosity:
- There is no Central Mystery of Quantum Mechanics because particles are waves, and both are mental waves.
- There is no collapse of the probability waves. The Copenhagen Interpretation is unnecessary because “reality does not exist without an observer to observe it” is natural.
- The Observer Effect does not change reality. Instead, the observer effect, which changes the invisible mental waves to the visible “world we experience,” changes only the manifestation of the same reality.
- There is No Mind-Body Problem because the body is the mind.
- There is a foundation for a possible multiverse.
Indeed, while quantum physics provides the mechanism of reality using energy, Buddha’s non-luminosity is the mental reality that quantum physics tries to explain.
With its unique epistemology, Buddhism does not need to assume energy by defining one. Buddha does not have to use mathematics or make assumptions because “Nothing but Mentality” is the fundamental ground truth from which Buddha’s teachings sprout. “Nothing but Mentality” can be the fundamental ground truth for Buddhism because it is “how things stand in themselves.”
Because of its epistemology and verifiability, Buddhism should not be considered a religion or philosophy. Instead, Buddhism is Buddha’s education on how things stand in themselves in nature. In other words, Buddhism is the ultimate natural science.
However, while their means of knowledge are mutually exclusive, their difference also makes Buddhism and science complementary. While knowledge allows science to understand “the world we experience,” direct perception of empirical facts enables understanding “how things stand in themselves.” Together, energy and mentality can give humans a comprehensive understanding of our cosmos. Mentergy, meaning mentality plus energy, is such an attempt.
If you are interested in Buddhism or just curious, please join us on this journey of discovery in Buddhism. If you are undecided, you are welcome to join this journey and see if interpreting Buddhism using scientific mechanisms and epistemology changes your opinion. If you are religious, please understand that Buddhism and religion share many similarities. You can still go to heaven, except that Peter will not be there to meet you. If you have doubts about a creator, you should know that the appearance of the universe is a natural event in Buddhism.
If you are not scientific, please do not worry. The difference between fluctuating or not is about as profound as we need to go scientifically. Furthermore, Buddhist dictionaries will help clarify all Buddhist concepts.
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