I think I spoke before on this. It’s not useful to posit quantum information with the information in the mind. As then there’s no way for parinibbāna as the cessation of mind to happen. And classical information is more likely the proper way to map to the information in the mind.
No, no I think you misunderstand me 
I’m saying the dilemma gets much worse when you take into account quantum effects and not just special relativity. I wasn’t offering a way out, but rather to give added perspective on how difficult you may find resolving the dilemma! 
As for worrying about negative press from Dr Hossenfelder’s videos a couple things:
- Her videos do not in the slightest seem like negative press to at least my conception of dhamma
- Saying otherwise involves lots of assumptions about what “dhamma” is and that is not given
- Worrying about skeptical scrutiny of dhamma reveals either a lack of faith in dhamma or a lack of faith in others
- Regardless, having an aversion to skeptical scrutiny of our own views can act as a barrier to progress on the path and can lead to dogmatic views
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At the moment, the best hypothesis is that the world is quantum and not classical so I don’t see how this helps. Every modern experiment conducted confirms this to incredible degrees of accuracy. It may be that there is a post-quantum theory out there that we’ll find in the future but Bell’s theorem already puts a huge constraint on the shape of those theories and absent experimental deviation in future I think you’re putting a lot of faith in classical information.
BTW, you should also know new paper says quantum effects do take place in the brain in such a way as to play a part in brain cognition. This was reported on by Dr. Hossenfelder in another video btw.
I don’t trust non-Buddhists to comment on our core doctrines and come out positive about it. Just interact with secular Buddhists to know how much they can really justify their wrong views.
This is for the consideration of the many. Not me. Suppose a person is not clear about the separation between physicalism philosophy vs pure scientific findings. In that case, I don’t trust that person to comment about the supernormal things we have in the dhamma. I have no reason to believe that Sabine is clear about such separation.
I trust myself, but then my Physics and Buddhism book is on basically ongoing hiatus. (https://physicsandbuddhism.blogspot.com/) And I keep on learning more things on both sides, more on Buddhism side. It’s also a distraction to the path.
I don’t see how.
Each person having their own reality is the point I really like. That way, we cannot compare. And comparing is just concepts. Just being here and now, living in the present moment. There’s no dilemma when we don’t use concepts.
The information in our computer is classical, even when the world is governed by quantum at the small scales. Quantum information works on quantum computers. Classical information can be copied. I can write the information in my mind and you can read it, thus classical information is now cloned.
Quantum information cannot be cloned without knowing what it is exactly beforehand. Quantum information is describing about the properties of subatomic particles, their spin, position, momentum, charge, etc in a wavefunction, it’s basically specifying matter and the blueprint of matter, of which we can replace the material with other matter and the blueprint is what makes us recognize a thing as a thing. Like the shape and form of the material as opposed to the exactly this material.
I don’t think mind needs such a description and it’s not clear how it can be described in such detail, other than just neuron connection in the brain, but then we don’t believe the brain is the mind.
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Correct. But this classical information is just a concept and is not actualized as matter in our world. In our world, computers are made of parts that are subject to the laws of quantum mechanics just like the brain. The brain being a physical object manifest as matter in our world is subject to quantum mechanics. The mind - just like classical information - is just a concept and is not actualized as matter in our world.
We are a designation that can only be posited on the valid basis of a body and a mind. Thus what we are is in some sense governed or beholden by the laws of quantum mechanics.
Perhaps even more than we thought previously, again Sabine to rescue:
Yes, that is the video I mentioned above about the link I mentioned above 
^^^
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That classical information is part of the thermodynamics of information to resolve Maxwell’s demon suggests that it’s physical. When we erase classical information, heat is generated as in accordance to the second law of thermodynamics.
That which is physical is subject to the laws of quantum mechanics according to our best current scientific understanding. So if you are correct that classical information is physical this is akin to saying that classical information is subject to the laws of quantum mechanics and can thus be modeled by quantum information.
- Classical information can be reduced to quantum information.
- With matter subject to quantum mechanics we can model the abstraction that is “classical information.”
Two (fuzzy) ways of saying the same thing. To deny them would be to say that the laws of thermodynamics are somehow incompatible with quantum mechanics which I think has not been demonstrated and would be a highly highly controversial statement to my mind
One way to easily see this is by noting that a classical computer can be modeled quite efficiently by a quantum computer, but the reverse does not hold; we can’t efficiently model a quantum computer with a classical computer.
I am completely unqualified in these topics, but I am interested in understanding Sarvāstivāda and knowing a bit about the ‘dilemma’ here. I wonder if @yeshe.tenley would state how they relate these findings of science to, say, Buddhist kamma and rebirth, because it seems you are knowledgable about these findings and do not find a contradiction. In other words, how does your view differ from @NgXinZhao’s view here?
I also wonder why you would feel the need to posit that the divine eye carries information faster than the speed of light, @NgXinZhao? I do not have this ability, so going purely off of our early textual sources, it seems like language around ‘light’ and so forth is connected to the language around the divine eye. It seems reasonable to me that these abilities would have limits, and not be able to see literally anything anywhere instantaneously. But that is just speculation.
Hello @Vaddha,
I can try in the future to come up with something regarding how I understand (and do not understand) kamma and rebirth, but in the meantime I want to clear up one potential misunderstanding:
These “findings of science” are a century old. Special relativity and quantum mechanics have governed and informed the development of our technologically modern world for a century. Nothing in the original video is presenting anything “new” about what modern physicists and scientists think about our world.
Before elaborating further, I will say that - much as I anticipate Dr. Hossenfelder might say - to me the concepts of ‘kamma’ and ‘rebirth’ that are regularly presented on this forum are so ill-defined that modern science can say next to nothing about them. That is to say, there is no measurement or observation that can be taken that would adjudicate the ‘truth’ of the concepts of ‘kamma’ and ‘rebirth’ that are regularly presented here.
I take what might be described as an instrumentalist approach to both science and buddhism. That is to say I think one of the biggest errors that scientists and buddhists (and many others) jointly make is to take what are mere concepts as substantially real existents and then to erect elaborate metaphysical contraptions to resolve the contradictions that naturally arise when we take mere concepts for substantially real existents.
I’ll try and think of a way to elaborate how I view ‘kamma’ and ‘rebirth’ in some future comment if people actually care. I’ve tried to relate my idiosyncratic understanding of rebirth in the past to other Buddhists and failed spectacularly. Maybe I’ll say this: to deny rebirth in a substantialist way is a mistake and to affirm rebirth in a substantialist way is a mistake. Substantialism is a mistake. Which is to say that I think ‘rebirth’ can and should be understood to exist in a non-substantialist way.
Hi @yeshe.tenley. Yes, I don’t mean to imply that there is some breaking news we must just now consider. By ‘findings’ I meant it in a general sense.
I agree that rebirth should not be taken in a substantialist sense, and I believe that the Buddha was proposing what he considered an empirical description of rebirth that was descriptive of conditioned experience, rather than a kind of theory of how substantial reality operates with itself. I suppose that it seems that the challenge which arises with this position is that this seems to approach a kind of non-falsifiable position, something immune to any kind of theory that relates them to modern science. At least from the perspective of the current scientific methodology. Would you agree? (I’m not sure this makes any sense or that it is expressed precisely how I’d mean it).
I think you’re relating what you consider to be a problem: that conceptions of rebirth do not easily avail themselves to scientific verification. That generally speaking, conceptions of rebirth are not defined in such as way that a scientist could adjudicate the truth of the situation through some series of measurements and observations.
First, I’m not sure this is necessarily a problem. Second, I’d say it is possible to conceive of conceptions of rebirth that could in principle be refuted by some series of measurements and observations.
Third, I’d ask a question: do you think it is possible for a scientist to verify the truth of the matter that a person is the same substantial person from moment to moment in this very life? Could a scientist in theory adjudicate the truth through a series of measurements and observations? Isn’t that taken as a given by just about everybody? That a person is the same person in some substantial way from moment to moment in this very life? The reason why a scientist could not so adjudicate is because ‘substantial person’ is ill-defined 
Thank you for the nice interaction.
I agree. I don’t think rebirth needs to be framed in such a way that modern science can verify it. Personally, I would be comfortable if it were a separate field of investigation, as it was in the time of the Buddha himself for example. At least one that would need a different series of standards and methodologies from external measurement.
I think so too, yes. I wanted to convey this, that it isn’t that anything goes, as certain principles can be refuted outside of peer-reviewed science. So certain models may be falsifiable on various grounds, especially (but not necessarily limited to) physicalist models of rebirth which use the same substantial materials to form their theories that science works with.
I find this question hard to answer. Because the thought experiment is taking place within the constraints of a world similar to our own. And so this means that our experience, in order to function to even take measurements, must be an impermanent and conditioned stream with dependent existence. So even if they were to observe, say, what are seemingly the same external things persisting, those observations would still be dependent and could not confirm a kind of perceptual realism or substantial, independent existence.
I think it is easier for science to show that people are not the same moment to moment, as they often do, e.g. by talking about the constant exchange of cells and matter and so on. But this still is from a particular perspective limited mainly to physicalist observations of what tends to be considered a substantial external world (but which does not need to be, and I am not accusing all scientists of being unaware or heedless of this).
Did that help answer your cross-questions?
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How would you scientifically test rebirth? You have seen the rebirth evidences already right? Why is that not enough? What’s missing?
Tell me how you would put rigor into it?
I would like to add here, though, @yeshe.tenley, that I do not think that this life moment-to-moment comparison is 100% convincing. If someone believes that consciousness is sufficiently explained as a mere epi-phenomenon of the brain, then it is no mystery why things continue moment-to-moment without continuing after the death of the brain. So someone would have to have sufficient reason (philosophical or otherwise) to say that the belief of a substantial brain being the basis of conscious experience is not a sufficient explanation for moment-to-moment experience in this life.
This assumes the brain is a substantial existent that ends at death does it not? It also relies upon the assumption that “the person” is the brain or is consciousness at least, right?
Yes, I think that is right.
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What according you are not concepts and real existents?