The infinity problem in Buddhism

For me consciousness is the result of natural evolution processes that may have started at unicellular level billion years ago. The “level” of consciousness has increased with the level of complexity of multicellular organisms. If you look at me nothing will tell you I possess consciousness, same for plants, trees and other animals. For exemple plants and trees of the same family do collaborate with each other by their root system. So what’s this “collaboration” triggered by?

According to Abhidhamma, plants do not have consciousness. They have only Jivitandriya. Collaboration is the result of Jivitandriya. There are two type of Jivitandriya. (Nama and Rupa) Plant possess Rupa Jivitandriya and sentients beings possess Nama Jivitandriya.
This evolutionary process is discussed in my essay in the following link.

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=29365&hilit=

There is an extensive discusion in the following link in Dhamma Wheel.

https://dhammawheel.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=1204&hilit

This is a nice rabbit hole question, worthy to be included in the ‘net of views’ - why didn’t the suttas predict that?

Anyway, it all depends on how we conceptualize samsara and avijja, which maybe shouldn’t be attempted at all. I see three different possibilities:

  1. When I get enlightened ‘I’ stop to be ‘I’, but you (unenlightened) are still ‘you’. There are still Mara and devas, it’s just that one tiny fraction of avijja has vanished. This seems to me what can mostly be read into the EBT.
  2. When I get enlightened all of existence gets enlightened. With ‘I’ not being ‘I’ anymore, it has been realized that the whole show was just a scam, that I have never existed in the first place, and ‘you’ neither. There is no avijja, no Mara, there is just ‘Mara’, a meaningless game. This can be encapsulated in the Advaitic “Nothing ever happened”, or ‘Leela’ the divine game.
  3. There is objectively an infinite past of avijja, but with my enlightenment reality changes and now avijja objectively stops existing. This would basically be a solipsistic one-mind-concept. I included it for logical reasons and don’t know of a spiritual tradition that teaches that.
  4. There is a devastating version of all three above, namely that avijja springs up spontaneously: If my ‘I’ was fake and I realized it, what prevents avijja to pop up ‘another I’, a fresh start, out of nothing? Not my ‘old I’ with its specific rebirth-biography but just another new stupid ‘I’. That would be samsara of a higher order, a pool of literally infinite avijja with unending creative powers. It would include the possibility for individual rebirth-biographies to end with enlightenment, but would not diminish the hellish round in a big picture.

So I feel that the infinity problem is connected to this and that the answer depends on our concept of samsara and avijja

It’s pretty simple. In order for consciousness to exist, it needs a support in the physical world. And that support is the nervous system. Both buddhism and science agree plants do not posses consciousness. And this was quite a claim to make at the time by Buddha since the idea that everything posseses consciousness, including rocks, mountains, etc was very popular at his time.

Think of those doors with sensors that open when you approach them. Plants are just like that.

There is no evidence to support this. One could just as easily say that in order for the physical world to exist it requires consciousness. Both are speculation.

There is more evidence to support the idea that plants are conscious then there is against it - but we have to keep in mind that we don’t have the slightest idea what consciousness actually is or how it comes into being (so to speak). All we have are unsupported theories.

The infinity problem you present is built upon assumptions about consciousness, time, and space. As we don’t understand anything about these (though admittedly we think we do) anything built upon these theories is likely to present ‘problems’. I think you just need to solve the true nature of consciousness, time, and space - then everything else will be a walk in the park.

[quote=“dxm_dxm, post:24, topic:5821”]
Both buddhism and science agree plants do not posses consciousness.
[/quote]Actually, believe it or not, “science” does not argue this necessarily. Science is not a monolith.

The difficulties science has in defining and “pinning down” consciousness extends to what is considered “consciousness” and what is not.

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There is a difference between living beings and non-living things (objects, etc.) That difference is the existence of the consciousness element. The existence of the consciousness element makes possible for contact to exist. Because of contact, the other 3 aggregates come into being: feeling, volition, perception.

For example a car parking sensor is one element. The information it perceives is another element. In the case of living beings, there exists a third element: consciousness. “The meeting of the 3 means contact”. Though the contact between the consciousness element, the eye and eye sights - contact appears. Because of this contact, feeling, volition and perception exist. If there would be no consciousness element, there would be no contact so no feeling, no volition, no perception.

This is the difference between a living being and a car. And plants fall into the same category as cars. They are made just out of one aggregate, not out of 5. Also, because of lacking the feeling aggregate, they do not experience suffering. But Buddha said that despite this, it is still wrong to destroy plants because they provide shelter for other beings that can experience suffering.

As we don’t understand anything about these (though admittedly we think we do) anything built upon these theories is likely to present ‘problems’.

If we do not know anything about statistics, then we indeed will not know anything about the implications of infinity. Just like we can not know too much about how physics work without knowing anything about them. But if we do decide to learn something about statistics, then we will learn about the “almost surely” implication of infinity.

link: Almost surely - Wikipedia

The difficulties science has in defining and “pinning down” consciousness extends to what is considered “consciousness” and what is not.

Science is a discipline that studies form, not consciousness. Because of this, it has developed it’s own materialist reductionism belief system. For example sociologist tend to fall into an extreme and say “everything comes from social conditioning”. Psychologist tend to say “everything comes from the mind” and fall into the solipsism extreme. In the same way, those who study form tend to fall into the materialist extreme and say “everything comes from matter”. There is this tendency to fall into an extreme and say “everything comes from this” as in the simile with the elephant. And because of being in an extreme, you end up contradicted by reality.

But despite this materialist dogma that is a problem in those who study form, even they agree that plants are not conscious. At least that’s the generally accepted belief in the field. This belief is based on the lack of a nervous system in plants. Other systems, such as a computer, can imitate in complexity a nervous system. But there is no consciousness there. In the same way, plants can mimic characteristics of a nervous system but that’s not enough to provide a basis for the support of consciousness.

That seems like a rehash of the old élan vital theory of life. I think you would find very few biologists, or scientists of any kind, who believe it. The biochemical processes that characterize living things can take place in very simple entities. There is no positive reason to think all of them possesses consciousness.

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No, I have actually dismissed such ideas in one of my previous posts. And I have made a case for your second idea all of my posts.

The term “biologically living being” is misleading. What does this actually mean ? This difference from abiotic to biotic ? It means that an abiotic system can not replicate itself, while a biotic one can. That is the only difference between the two. They both are a bunch of chemicals organized in a certain way, only that the so called “biotic” one can replicate itself due to the way it is organized.

The real difference is between a conscious organism and a non-conscious one. One that has a nervous system and one that does not. If it doesn’t have a nervous system, it does not have the ability to support consciousness. It’s just as “alive” as your computer, only that it can replicate itself. That’s why I think the use of the term “alive” for simple biotic organisms without a nervous system is misleading.

I will start a new topic on this and about why artificial life has not been created yet soon.

We don’t know what has feeling and consciousness and what has not. This is because there is no proven technique how to measure the degree of feeling and of consciousness.

The Buddha model (the 5 kandhas) of representing sentient beings is pretty good but it’s just a model so it has limitations.

In the case of a car (or a robot) with sensors (visual, audio, touch, etc. that could easily emulate our five senses), plus various distributed computers to process the data and process various algorithms, and with some controls, then for someone who has no technical background this car or robot seems to have some sort of consciousnesses, at least the ones associated with the five senses. And why limit this robot to only emulate our five senses? It can have other senses that we may not have (infrared, vibrations, X-ray, radar, etc, etc) giving it much more potential to function in this universe by having many “sense-consciousnesses” emulations and being able to react (“feeling”?) as result of sensor inputs.

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Your solution nice as it is, is wrong. Sorry. If there is no beginning to rebirth, and there had been infinitely many past Buddhas, then each time a Buddha appears, at least one being (the Buddha himself, so in this case it doesn’t matter if the Buddha is fully enlightened or private) is out of samsara and end rebirth. So infinite amount of beings has already ended rebirth as there are infinitely many past Buddhas. The only logical conclusion seeing that there is still unenlightened beings is that there are infinitely many beings. Maths with infinity is tricky, it is not possible to have finite number(of unenlightened beings) minus infinity (number of past Buddhas) to produce finite number (of unenlightened beings), but possible to have infinitely many unenlightened beings minus infinitely enlightened beings to produce whatever number which is left, finite or infinite number of unenlightened beings.

Between infinitely many past Buddhas and finite amount of unenlightened beings, both having no direct mention in the sutta, which do you think is more dispensable with? If each Buddha requires a prediction by past Buddhas (as theravada tradition implies) or the Bodhisattva training by Mahayana, which also needs a past Buddha to teach, then having at least 7 past Buddhas confirmed in DN14, would imply infinitely many past Buddhas.

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Two problems here in bold:
The word exist only applies to a conditioned state, i.e. Plane of existence like humans. Being so, with existence comes death…

Maybe you are referring to what happens after Buddha passed away. Then the problem is language. The word exist cannot be used because Buddha has transcended beyond the conditioned to the unconditioned…unborn, uncreated and unestablished. That which is unborn cannot die…just like what AN10.81 says:

dwells with unrestricted awareness

The word forever has problems too because it is associated with the conditioned. That cannot be applied to the unestablished as it is timeless.

On the issue of why we are not enlightened already:

Well the fact is we are, that is our basic nature within all of us. That is what the teaching is trying to show us.

It is the same reason why the text says:

There are those with little dust on their eyes

So the teaching is to remove the dust so one can see.

Did Buddha taught anything beyond Nibbana?

SN56.31…

“What do you think, monks? Which are the more numerous, the few leaves I have here in my hand, or those up in the trees of the grove?”
“Lord, the Blessed One is holding only a few leaves: those up in the trees are far more numerous.”
"In the same way, monks, there are many more things that I have found out, but not revealed to you. What I have revealed to you is only a little.

The words existing and forever again has been wrongly worded yet it is already answered per above.

It seems like flawed logic to me to suggest that given an infinite amount of time everything must have happened. Why can’t the same thing (suffering?) have happened again & again?

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You’ve read only the title of the topic, not the topic. This is exactly what the topic explains: the almost-surely statistical problem.

@Emptiness - this is a theravada forum, not a mahayana one. Theravada follows the teachings of the historical Buddha. Also, the topic is not about what happens to an arahat after death.

I am curious, did someone inform B.Bodhi about this since the start of this topic ? It is quite a big deal for one not to understand. Biggest brain fart I’ve ever seen from B.Bodhi. Does he have an e-mail so I can send him this topic ?

Hilbert’s Hotel seems relevant (thought up by David Hilbert, a mathematician big into notions about infinity and levels of infinity). Infinity does have some weird and counter-intuitive properties. Hilbert’s Hotel is a nice way of demonstrating some of these.

In Hilbert’s Hotel there are infinite guests checked into an infinite numbers of rooms. Suppose the hotel manager asks half of the guests to leave. Let’s assume there’s a number associated with every room, and the manager first asks all guests with an odd room number 1,3,5,… etc. to leave. Then the the remaining guests are allocated to new rooms. Each guest is asked to move to the room with the room number of his previous room divided by 2, e.g. from room number i to room number i/2.

All the rooms of the hotel are now occupied again and the hotel is full. That’s in spite of the fact that half of the guests just left! :slight_smile: One can keep repeating the same process over and over and Hilbert’s Hotel will remain full.

Obviously, one can change around the room structure a little. Suppose the rooms in the hotel are huge (each corresponding to a world system). And suppose each day 5% (plucking an arbitrary and unrealistic figure from the air) of each room checks out (corresponding to some Buddha figure and his followers reaching nirvana and checking out). Each day (one day corresponding to one eon) 5% of the hotel leaves. However, just by then appropriately reallocating the guests within the hotel, we never run out of people (and all world systems remain fully populated)! :slight_smile:

Furthermore, suppose that this hotel has been around (and this emptying process going on each day/“eon” since seemingly forever into the past). Probabilistically, early checkouts are overwhelmingly far more likely than later checkouts. However, what does “early” even mean in this setup? Any guest at any point will have an infinity stretching out behind him, and could validly ask the very same question you are asking: why haven’t I checked out yet?

Seems extremely unlucky that you have managed to avoid this so far. But, of course, you wouldn’t be asking the question in the first place if you had already vanished off into nirvana previously (so in this setup you’re anything but a randomly-sampled observer; I’m essentially invoking anthropic principle arguments here). And also basically the system looks identical to any guest at any point (with a seeming infinity stretching out behind them into the past), so I’m not sure the question really makes that much sense (assuming a Hilbert Hotel type setup running for an infinitely long time).

My essential point here is that infinity is weird! :wink:

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why does DN 1 fails to do so?

Herein, bhikkhus, some recluse or brahmin is a rationalist, an investigator. He declares his view— hammered out by reason, deduced from his investigations, following his own flight of thought —thus: sassato loko

Which sutta states the round of rebirth goes back to infinity?

I think the argument of the OP is based on

Purimā, bhikkhave, koṭi na paññāyati avijjāya: ‘ito pubbe avijjā nāhosi, atha pacchā samabhavī’ti. Evañcetaṃ, bhikkhave, vuccati, atha ca pana paññāyati: ‘idappaccayā avijjā’ti.
Bhikkhus, this is said: ‘A first point of ignorance, bhikkhus, is not seen such that before this there was no ignorance and afterward it came into being.’ Still, ignorance is seen to have a specific condition.

(AN 10.61)

Now whether the sutta says this or not is another question.

We also have “beginningless saṃsāra” (無始生死) in SA 71. From that āgama, Ven Anālayo translates:

“What is abandoning the barrier? That is, it is abandoning the five lower types of fetter. What is crossing over the moat? That is, it is crossing over the deep moat of ignorance. What is surpassing the limitations? That is, it is the supreme surpassing of the beginningless round of births and deaths. What is shedding of all guards? That is, it is eradicating the craving for becoming. What is establishing the noble banner of the Dharma? That is, it is eradicating the ‘I’-conceit.”

The notion of ‘beginningless saṃsāra’ is not exceptionally eccentric in many Buddhisms.

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There is not just a single sutta, there is a whole subchapter called “without discoverable beginning” that has a collection of suttas about this.

Indeed, infinities are steange beasts. Another logically consistent option might be that there was a beginning, far before the Big Bang, so far from us that it’s practically infinity away. So the beginning is not discernible. This is actually one of the arguements I have seen in Physics cosmology, if there is a beginning to cyclic universe models due to entropy cannot be lower then, then given finite time to the future, we are far more likely to find ourselves closer to infinity in the future rather than any finite time distance from the beginning, thus the past is practically infinitely far away.

Then there was also a first Buddha in the past, too far in the past that there would be no way to know for sure.

Then there can be a finite amount of living beings who are still not enlightened. And hope for one day there would be no unenlightened being.

Another solution, Bhikkkhu Bodhi’s original answer, would be that infinite past, infinite Buddhas, finite beings, beings keep on deluding themselves into existence from nothing. Since a self who is reborn is not regarded as sacred as a soul in other religion, merely an illusion which propagates itself. Thus one only needs ignorance (plenty of those) to start off a process of volition which lead to consciousness etc in a body, perhaps we already created consciousness in robots or can do so.

A self then is like smoke on a steamy water in a basin. As long as the world can exist, conditions are there, more smoke can arise to sustain itself via rebirth. Destroy the water basin (destroy the universe), the smoke can reform elsewhere into other water ponds. The only solution is to see oneself as the smoke and don’t add heat to yourself, thus the smoke no longer think of itself as a self.

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