Nanavira addresses this topic at length in one of his letters. An excerpt:
1 Like
With respect to this… shall we say, ‘extended footnote’ to the thread, I thought I’d heft a weighty tome in all y’all’s direction, just for fun.
There is a need for integrated thinking about causality, probability, and mechanism in scientific methodology. A panoply of disciplines, ranging from epidemiology and biology through to econometrics and physics, routinely make use of these concepts to infer causal relationships. But each of these disciplines has developed its own methods, where causality and probability often seem to have different understandings, and where the mechanisms involved often look very different.
This variegated situation raises the question of whether progress in understanding the tools of causal inference in some sciences can lead to progress in other sciences, or whether the sciences are really using different concepts. Causality and probability are long-established central concepts in the sciences, with a corresponding philosophical literature examining their problems.
The philosophical literature examining the concept of mechanism, on the other hand, is more recent and there has been no clear account of how mechanisms relate to causality and probability. If we are to understand causal inference in the sciences, we need to develop some account of the relationship between causality, probability, and mechanism.
This book represents a joint project by philosophers and scientists to tackle this question, and related issues, as they arise in a wide variety of disciplines across the sciences.
Well, I think we probably are at an impasse, because it seems to me you don’t have much of an appreciation for how science works, and how experimental method is used to distinguish mere accidental correlations from causal relationships. The point of the medical example was to emphasize that it doesn’t matter what kinds of events are being studied: they may be two kinds of physical events, or they may be one class of physical events and another class of events of phenomenal consciousness. The point is that, as long as the events are observable, then one can test, and confirm or disconfirm, hypotheses about how these events are or are not causally related. One can often do this even in the absence of a mechanical model.
I find it hard to believe you honestly think the stabbing in the leg and the painful phenomenal experience are only some kind of accidental correlation, and that the latter does not causally depend on the former.
Science is about observable empirical regularities and contingent causal connections, as they arise in the actual course of nature. In most cases it does not depend on metaphysical conjectures about the ultimate ontological grounds of the phenomena it studies. By studying the actual course of nature, and disregarding irrelevant conjectures about merely possible courses of nature for which there is no empirical evidence, one can arrive at well-founded judgments about which contingent events and outcomes are probable, and which are not probable.
Of course, one can not “rule out” rebirth as a bare conceptual possibility. By the same token, one can not rule out that some great and powerful devil will decide to blow up the solar system tomorrow, or that there are invisible angels standing around my bed, or that performing a fire sacrifice will cause a good harvest, or that the strong nuclear force will decrease tomorrow by a factor of 10. But one cannot defend a belief in the plausibility of rebirth simply by hanging onto bare conceptual possibilities, drawn from considerations on the metaphysics of the mental. Evidence is needed, and without that evidence we have only an idle conceptual fantasy.
1 Like
With action at a distance there is no apparent connection between a cause and its effect - nothing can be observed passing in-between. No light, no radio-waves, no matter, no energy, no nuffin! As in this observed process or happening that takes place in the universe - all over the shop - likewise ‘rebirth’?
These observed happenings ‘action at a distance’ if applied to rebirth eliminates the question: what ‘passes’ from one life to another? There is no other explanation with regard to the observed universe that could explain rebirth as found in the early teachings. Any other approach would imply some kind of reincarnation either, partial or complete.
If we say something has passed from one life to the next, whether it is a soul, a mind or, a mental factor, we are suggesting something has been reincarnated. It does not matter if there is a complete ‘package deal’ or just something that seeds a new process. That is still something substantive or fundamental that existed before and continues to exist in the next life - even if it is a very brief existence.
Regarding the need for a direct observation of rebirth to prove its existence? That poses two problems: 1) when rebirth (hypothetically) takes place, any capacity for observation would be lost - in real time - as consciousness happens as a consequence of events within the ‘mind/body’. There is nothing to be witnessed and, there is nothing to witness or observe.
In the gap between one chitta and the next there is no mind-body process. Yes, I really did say that! No body and no mind (see below) - reality as a discontinuous process! There is no cognition, perception or, consciousness for an act of observation to take place.
An exception to this rule would be beings with a ‘mano-mayakaya’(mind-made body). This would include devas and practitioners with an ‘iddhi-vidhā’(higher power) that enables them to create mind-made bodies and have voluntary ‘out of body’ experiences . For your average-Joe/Jill, there could be no ‘observer’ outside of the event that could be observing it from somewhere else, 2) If an adept or ‘iddha’ witnessed a rebirth - through clairvoyance - they would not see a movement of a being from one life to the next. They would see something ending in the last life and something new appearing in the next one. There could not be a direct and unbroken observation of the rebirth process. There may be a ‘vision’ of a stream of energy passing out of one being and passing through the air and, landing somewhere else. Perception may provide a ‘seer’ with the ‘appearance’ of movement from ‘A to B’. That would be a projection - a superimposition - on a discontinuous process.
This is why field studies and indirect evidence is required to begin to fathom these extraordinary transpersonal insights. If a practitioner had a past life memory that could be verified through checking official records etc. then this would establish that rebirth happens - IMO. Until then, it remains an open question for open-minded people and a closed question for closed-minded people - this seems self-evident?
There is an idea floating about in Physics that ‘time’ could be fragmentary and discontinuous - a series of momentary happenings. Is it a coincidence that this understanding of time corresponds to the Buddhist theory of mind-moments - that is implicit in the EBT’s - or, is it a convergence? The average-Joe/Jill perceives an unbroken, seem-less and, (seamless) continuity in their ordinary waking-state. They perceive the existence of a relatively stable and continuous ‘being’ they refer to as my-self and, they perceive the world around them in the same - or a similar - way.
A ‘worlding’ (puttujhana) perceives the ‘world’ around them as not-self - something other - discontinuous and seperate. This could be something akin to an ‘optical illusion’ - a cognitive and perceptual delusion. Like all delusions it has a (sting in its tail). It is now proving problematic and dangerous in new and unprecedented ways. The limitations of our perceptual framework proscribes what we see and don’t see, what we understand and don’t understand??
Ecological insights have brought the commonplace notion i.e. the existence of discrete and seperate ‘individuals’ into question! Human-beings are flow-throughs - conduits of matter, energy and information. The skin that covers a human body is porous. We are not separate from the environment in any meaningful way. If you find this hard to understand then let go of the next in-breath and see what happens?
We co-exist in an interdependent process we call life on Earth. If we damage the ‘worlds’ we coexist in we damage ourselves - as they are not separate happenings. Naive realism - and individualism - are part of the modernist mind-set that has contributed to the environmental issues that threaten the survival of countless sentient an non-sentient beings.
The Buddha’s transpersonal insights lead him to question and challenge the teachings of the annihilationists and materialists of his day. He saw the ‘danger’ in naive realism and the problems that arise when we are unable to question our self-centred assumptions about the nature of reality.
The collective issues of sustainability we face on this fragile planet is a consequence of not recognising the ‘dangers’ of individualism and a preoccupation with selfish concerns.
A ruthless opportunist will benefit from a bad case of naive realism! They may say: you only live once and, it does not matter what happens in the future because I will not be alive to see it! It may be pointed out that their grandchildren may suffer as a consequence of their selfish behaviour but that does not seem to register - for reasons unknown. The Buddha saw the ethical dangers associated with annihilationism as clearly as he saw its naive realism. It is surprising how difficult it is for some to see the danger i.e. why consider the welfare of future generations if it is not a personal problem?
When these beliefs become the driving force within a culture - the dominant paradigm - the culture will self-destruct. In the present crisis the economic, social, cultural and, environmental consequences are global. The Buddha realised it was a short walk between annihilationism and what we call nihilism. There is an observable relationship between materialism, hedonism and mindless consumerism - welcome to the modern world on the way to eco-cide.
I am not saying there is a necessary connection between materialism - as a philosophy - and materialistic values but, it just so happens, that since the advent of modern materialism and its travelling companion technological-somnambulism we have witnessed increasingly negative impacts on the natural world and a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots. Two old books can give us an insight into how it all started and how we ended up in the pickle we now find ourselves in (see below).
I personally find the Mahayana understanding of rebirth as more compelling or easier to believe, because the Mahayana concept of Buddha-nature explains what it is that survives from one lifetime to the next.
There might be some disagreement in Mahayana Buddhism as to what exactly the Buddha-nature itself is, as far as what it’s made out of and how it comes into being, but at least it’s something that we can say is reborn from life to life.
Buddha-nature is not a separate self, since it is non-ego. One’s Buddha-nature is instead one with the Buddha-nature in all things and beings.
This is why I asked the question about your interest in the Buddha-Dhamma - your aspirations - and its connection to your phenomenological interests. As you would know, The 2 H’s you mentioned had interests that are not entirely commensurate with the early strata of the Buddhist teachings. As far as your interest in waking-up is concerned it is best to try and fathom the teachings of the ‘Awakened One’ and put them into practice. I do understand how Heideggar and, particularly Husserl, provide you with a template and valuable tools for critiquing, for questioning the underlying assumptions of materialists. However, waking up is our main interest as Buddhists - at least, I hope so?
Yes, empirical method requires observation which has been precisely the difficulty with the psychological sciences since their inception in the late 1800’s … one can’t observe another’s subjectively ‘internal’ phenomenal experiences. Yet you seem to believe here that phenomenal experience is an observable event like any physical event and that this is standard empirical practice in the sciences? Is that correct? If so then ‘it seems to me you don’t have much of an appreciation for how science works’!
You also appear to be caught up with this notion that correlation is somehow always only accidental? But correlation is not necessarily accidental, it can be high or low correlation, it can indicate a possible causal relationship or it can indicate a necessary association that is not necessarily causal.
So I have no idea what you mean here, the fact that ‘stabbing in the leg’ is correlated with my report of phenomenal pain would not indicate a merely ‘accidental’ correlation. But what is it that is causal here in your colloquial sense? Your volition? The physical damage it causes?
In my stricter and, I would argue, properly scientific notion of causality there is only correlation of the phenomenal pain with the physical damage to my leg. That damage physically causes stimulation of the pain receptors in my peripheral nervous system that propagate electrochemical signals into my CNS, through the brain stem and into my brain. That is an example of an empirically observable, physically causal chain of objectively verifiable events, and nowhere in this causal chain is there room for actual phenomenal pain apart from the subject’s report of it.
The mystery of the hard problem of the supposed physical provenance of phenomena remains an impasse for scientific thinking.
You are right! Until it has been demonstrated conclusively that a neuro-chemical process in the nervous system has given rise to a discrete and recognisable thought then we only have a correlation that is being observed. When neuro-scientists can stimulate the brain and make it generate the ‘thought’ of a pink flying giraffe in a bi-plane’ then we will clearly ‘see’ how our thoughts are the products of synaptic happenings in association areas or such-like! As of yet, there is no conclusive evidence for the truth of materialist speculations regarding the mind-body process.
Likewise, I also have viewed moments or memories, and even if they did confuse my thoughts at that time and much later, they did keep me open to speculation, tanha is vanity, life just is!
The core of the teachings, the truths and path are the best I have read or understood, for dealing with life’s difficulties and particularly those of the mind, communication remains a barrier for understanding or interpretation filled with paradox, past life viewing or viewing the future? perhaps it is possible to view the future without noticing the imminent signs or message that may be perceived, we may look to the skies and see a bright dot getting closer without realizing the impact that dot may have on this planet, but some may speculate, population growth is a speculation at the moment and correcting it possibly a cause of much pain? The Buddha was a genius before his time and wisdom flowed in his words, may all beings find their peace.
2 cents…
You can never arrive at faith or understanding in rebirth and why the Buddha taught it by the means of hammering out the right answer by logical thought, philosophizing until you arrive at the right answer (same thing as the former), scientific evidence that supports rebirth (I say that as someone who is quite familiar with the scientific method given I have a BS degree), or similar brute force methods. It’s more subtle that that, similar to why you’re drawn to and (probably) view as superior the Buddha’s teachings over the teachings of Sri Nisargadatta or Zhuangzi or Jesus or what have you. Of course, and as to be expected, if you’re not looking to understand rebirth and why the Buddha taught it but rather you’ve firmly set your mind to look for reasons to be skeptical of it and reject it in some way, then your mind will find what it’s looking for. Unsurprisingly, of course.
IMO, YMMV, etc., etc.
edit: grammar, punctuation
3 Likes
One more penny…
Heads: it’s possible to understand it without believing in it, of course. As to why the Buddha taught it, we can say it’s a function of cultural ensconcement. This is what’s called “inference from the best systematization”.
(In Iron Age India, this resulted in ideas about rebirth; modern bases of knowledge force a change here, raising the standard of evidence which that claim requires.)
Tails: A “reason to be skeptical of it” is the same whether it’s rebirth, heaven, or flying spaghetti monsters: lack of evidence. It’s a double standard to hold some set of claims aside from this requirement, and without evidence all of these sorts of beliefs amount to personal preference, a simple choice between alternatives with a basis in feeling.
You are welcome to your opinion (not speaking for we) and are free to believe that the Buddha’s teaching of rebirth is a cultural artifact or purely an outgrowth of “Iron Age India” or whatever. It doesn’t matter what kind of label you attach to it or what understanding you arrive at to explain it away, backed up by whatever manifestation of conceptualization your conditioning has arrived at. He realized it and taught it. Period. One has to come to terms with that.
BTW, the “debating with others until you remain convinced” approach is the same as the “hammering out the right answer by logical thought” approach; I wouldn’t hesitate adding it to the same category.
3 Likes
file under right view, rebirth
KN Iti 81 sakkāra: offerings: almsround in jhāna
…
(Buddha directly witnessed, not second hand info)
“taṃ kho panāhaṃ, bhikkhave,
“It’s not through having heard it
nāññassa samaṇassa vā brāhmaṇassa vā sutvā vadāmi;
from another contemplative or brahman that I say,
api ca, bhikkhave, yadeva me
“Instead, it’s from having
sāmaṃ ñātaṃ
known it myself,
sāmaṃ diṭṭhaṃ
seen it myself,
sāmaṃ viditaṃ
observed it myself
tamevāhaṃ vadāmi.
that I say,
(repetition of 3 types of offerings)
“diṭṭhā mayā, bhikkhave,
“Monks, I have seen
sattā sakkārena abhibhūtā,
beings conquered by receiving offerings–
Pariyādinna-cittā,
their minds overwhelmed–
kāyassa bhedā paraṃ maraṇā apāyaṃ duggatiṃ vinipātaṃ nirayaṃ upapannā.
at the break-up of the body, after death, reappearing in a plane of deprivation, a bad destination, a lower realm, hell.
…
1 Like
devas dying, being reborn as human considered a favorable rebirth:
KN Iti 83 pañca-pubba-nimitta: five-previous-signs
4. pañca-pubba-nimitta-suttaṃ (KN 4.83)
83. vuttañhetaṃ bhagavatā, vuttamarahatāti me sutaṃ –
§83. This was said by the Blessed One, said by the Arahant, so I have heard:
“Monks, when a deva is about to pass away from the company of devas, five omens appear: his garlands wither, his clothes get soiled, sweat comes out of his armpits, a dullness descends on his body, he no longer delights in his own deva-seat. The devas, knowing from this that ‘This deva-son is about to pass away,’ encourage him with three sayings: ‘Go from here, honorable sir, to a good destination. Having gone to a good destination, gain the gain that is good to gain. Having gained the gain that is good to gain, become well-established.’”
“yadā, bhikkhave, devo devakāyā cavanadhammo hoti, pañcassa pubbanimittāni pātubhavanti — mālā milāyanti, vatthāni kilissanti, kacchehi sedā muccanti, kāye dubbaṇṇiyaṃ okkamati, sake devo devāsane nābhiramatīti. tamenaṃ, bhikkhave, devā ‘cavanadhammo ayaṃ devaputto’ti iti viditvā tīhi vācāhi anumodenti VAR — ‘ito, bho, sugatiṃ gaccha, sugatiṃ gantvā suladdhalābhaṃ labha, suladdhalābhaṃ labhitvā suppatiṭṭhito bhavāhī’”ti.
When this was said, a certain monk said to the Blessed One, “What, lord, is the devas’ reckoning of going to a good destination? What is their reckoning of the gain that is good to gain? What is their reckoning of becoming well-established?”
“The human state, monks,1 is the devas’ reckoning of going to a good destination. Having become a human being, acquiring conviction in the Dhamma-&-Vinaya taught by the Tathāgata: this is the devas’ reckoning of the gain that is good to gain. When that conviction is settled within one–rooted, established, & strong, not to be destroyed by any brahman or contemplative; deva, Māra, or Brahma; or anyone else in the world: this is the devas’ reckoning of becoming well-established.”
Well, there is a very active, burgeoning field of scientific research that views the matter otherwise. Journals like Consciousness and Cognition, Neuroscience and Cognition, The Journal of Consciousness Studies and Psyche all publish numerous papers about ongoing research in the empirical investigation of consciousness.
You could also take a look at the web pages of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness and the The Science of Consciousness conference at University of Arizona’s Center for Consciousness Studies for a further overview of the kind of research that is being conducted, and for philosophical discussions of the methodological questions you are raising.
Insofar as the methodological issue has a contemporary locus classicus, it is probably David Chalmers’s article “How can we construct a science of consciousness?” See also his more extensive paper “Consciousness and its Place in Nature”
Note that Chalmers, who originated the expression, “hard problem of consciousness” and provoked the philosophical discussion around the that expression, does not at all advance the kind of scepticism about causal interaction you are endorsing. He considers, and finds viable, both dualist and monist versions of interactionism. The hard problem is the problem of explaining how conscious phenomena arise from physical and neural processes. But understanding how they arise is not a necessary condition for understanding that they arise, and for the testing whether or they are causally dependent on the physical phenomena that are the occasion for their arising.
We test for such causal correlations by controlling for various attending factors, so that we can attempt to isolate causally necessary and sufficient conditions conditions for the occurrence of the conscious phenomena, and increase the probability of counterfactual statements about them. Once we are in a position to assert, with a high degree of epistemic probability, a claim such as “if brain event E had not occurred, then conscious event C would not have occurred”, then we have arrived at a justified - though obviously defeasible - causal belief.
I’m not quite understanding you. Since you accept that observable psychophysical correlations can indicate a possible causal relationship, why do you think we can not then go on to do further experimentation and statistical analysis to determine whether or not a causal relationship is actually present.
You should read the second Chalmers article above for discussion of various possibilities concerning where that room occurs. Certainly, as a methodological matter, we can only observe our own conscious experiences directly, and need to rely on subjects’ reports of their own experience to gather data on the conscious experiences of others. So is your skepticism about an empirical science of consciousness based solely on skepticism about whether those reports are true or not? Can’t we do meaningful studies about whether some drug has the side effect of making people sad or melancholy, or prompting suicidal ideation, or inducing tinnitus, by asking them questions about their subjective experiences, and taking those reports at face value?
Just to take an example, I heard a song in the supermarket yesterday, and now can’t get that song out of my mind. It is quite annoying. If I tell you that is happening, will you automatically deny the epistemic reliability of my report? If not, would you deny the possibility, then, of doing a series of scientific experiments to determine whether listening to songs on supermarket sound systems tends to cause subjective experiences of hearing music the next day? These kinds of studies of the causal connections between physical phenomena and conscious phenomena can be conducted in a straightforward way.
I get the feeling that no matter how thorough these studies are, and how tight a causal connection is established, you might deny it is really a causal connection, and hold that all of these relationships are only “correlations”. Perhaps you have some views on the metaphysics of causation that views it as a deeply metaphysical and somewhat obscure “nexus” between events a la Spinoza or other rationalists. But I prefer the various contemporary Humean accounts of causation, which are all that are required by, and employed in, modern science. Chalmers also raises, and dismisses the rationalist objection in “Consciousness and its Place in Nature”:
It is sometimes objected that distinct physical and mental states could not interact, since there is no causal nexus between them. But one lesson from Hume and from modern science is that the same goes for any fundamental causal interactions, including those found in physics. Newtonian science reveals no causal nexus by which gravitation works, for example; rather, the relevant laws are simply fundamental. The same goes for basic laws in other physical theories. And the same, presumably, applies to fundamental psychophysical laws: there is no need for a causal nexus distinct from the physical and mental properties themselves.
And yet, all of these issues are so far from the further issue of rebirth that it is not clear how resolving them would have any impact whatsoever on the rebirth issue . The idea that the hard problem of consciousness somehow “makes room” for rebirth, or renders claims about rebirth more plausible than they would otherwise be, makes about as much sense as saying that the mere fact of the phenomenological irreducibility of color experience makes seances or demonic possession more plausible. I don’t get that.
Several of them. The fact that one of my volitions is involved in the causal chain is incidental to the general situation. We can replace it by a hammer sliding off a shelf in response to an earth tremor, if you like. But we then have a (partially specified) causal chain: Hammer falling —> hammer impacting your knee —> hammer impact stimulating neuroreceptors in your knee —> neural transmissions from the neororeceptoers to your brain ----> activity in your brain ----> conscious experience of pain. At every step in the chain, there is still more science to be done to explain how these causal relationships arise - and perhaps there are some of them which will remain at the level of brute causal relationships in our best models, that can only be confirmed, and resist further reduction.
3 Likes
This runs two different issues together. One issue is whether there are empirically confirmable causal connections between conscious mental phenomena and physical phenomena, particularly physical events occurring in the brain. A further question is whether the former type of phenomena can be ontologically reduced to the latter type of phenomena. The second question is a metaphysical question, and answering it is not a requirement for answering the first question.
What does “realized it” mean?
It means they believe in psychic powers. That’s the basic epistemological difference underlying these disagreements, in a nutshell.
(Basically, orthodox belief here is that the mental sense base can zoom around in a mind-made body that levitates and goes through walls; or, it generates a psychic eye which can see wafts of kamma & whatnot. Either way, other realms can be visited/observed.)
1 Like
Hi DKervick,
thank you for those suggestions but I’m well acquainted with the philosophy of mind, current neuroscience and cognitive research, Chalmer’s provocations re the hard problem and panpsychism, as well as of course the phenomenological interpretation of these new advances, as these are part of my research interests at the moment (and for the last 25 years or half of my entire life!). You really have no need to educate me up to your standards.
What I find exciting about the ‘hard problem of consciousness’ and its ever expanding publishing niche and conference market over the last 15-20 years is the growing realisation in those hard science and physicalist communities that the problem is a giant brick wall for scientific thinking, the endless non-physical dimensions of which are only just starting to become apparent. For phenomenologists this wall is what we begin with, ergo Husserl’s call ‘back to the things themselves’ of phenomenal experience and the open ended question of the ‘how to’ of phenomenological method. It seems to me that these branches of science and its analytic philosophy are on a road that is merging (finally!) with the same road phenomenology has been travelling for the last century.
Re Chalmers and the problem of the causal closure of the physical world, this physicalist dogma is precisely the last bastion holding out in the face of the enigma of phenomena. Whether you call it emergence, supervenience or simply reductive physical causality, the problem of epiphenomenalism remains, for how can we allow mere mental phenomena to cause changes in the physical world? The move towards some sort of panpsychism is designed to circumvent this by introducing phenomenal consciousness as a fundamental physical force, which will require a rethink of fundamental physics!
But rather than shoehorning phenomena into the physical world I’m interested in another way, you might call it a middle way, and that is to bring the phenomenal world ‘out of our individual physical heads’ and into the real and actual world, where openness and its presencing reign, das Ereignis!
So … where scientific thinking is concerned, the notion that all other forms of thought need to correct themselves with regards to science and its ontologies is I think premature, and most especially where phenomenal experience is concerned. Which is where, in part, this thread began, and it’s nice to stay on topic.
Yours in impasse,
das Zeug Gezeugt!
2 Likes
This assumes there’s a difference in the first place. I’ve never understood that assumption.