Indian Logic Forum

Plamen · Posted: Sun Nov 06, 2005 5:26 pm Post subject: Abstract Buddhist Atomism

Here is an exerpt from a long article of Jeffrey Grupp published in the Indian International Journal of Buddhist Studies:

According to the philosophy of abstract Buddhist atomism, the basic building blocksвЂ”which are atoms of energy, irreducible momentary pieces of existenceвЂ”emerge in a lawless manner from the void. This also appears to possibly be in accord with the description of the quantum foam, as it is occasionally refereed to, that physicists have theorized makes up all of reality. In writing about the very tiniest levels of reality that physicists discuss, the physicist Brian Greene shows that the nature of reality described by physicists may appear similar to the reality of abstract Buddhist atomism:

Jeffrey Grupp · Guest 100.00 points

My article, вЂ?The R-Theory of TimeвЂ¦вЂ™ can be read, in full, at my website, www.abstractatom.com. This article is an attempt to give new philosophical evidence for the apparently erroneous manner in which so many philosophers maintain that reality is populated by non-empirical metaphysical items (relations, past moments, possible worlds, etc.) that they allege are real, and вЂ?out thereвЂ™ (independent of the mind). I show that such metaphysical items are the result of not the logic of philosophy, but rather of placing intuition over reason, and of placing far too much trust in non-nirvanic empirical awareness (i.e., conceptual imagination). My article is also an earnest attempt to show that by clearing all that away through new evidence I give that shows the apparent absurdity of the metaphysical items that philosophers so often fabricate, the logic of Buddhist philosophy and the discovery of the reality of Buddhist ultimate reality is arrived at. Interestingly, this ultimate reality is atomic, ineffable, and is in much agreement how physicists have found ultimate reality to be.
--Jeffrey Grupp

Plamen · Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 6:30 pm Post subject:

Dear Dr. Grupp,

I am very much interested in Indian Atomism (my D.Litt. dissertation was dedicated to the Philosophy of Indian Atomism), so I found it exciting to read about your interpretation of the Yogacara-Sautrantika ontology of Dharmakirti in terms of atomism. As far as I can see, by Abstract Atom you understand the svalaksana, which is constantly translated by Stcherbatsky as point-instant of efficient energy and defined as the Ultimate Real. Of course, it is beyond all mental fabrications, and actually before any mental fabrication (kalpana), containing the pure Thus (tathata) of the thing, which is undivided (advaya) and in this sense atomic.

My question is, what textual evidence do you have that svalaksanas emerge from the void rather than from the dharmata?

Thank you,
Plamen Gradinarov

Jeffrey Grupp · Guest 100.00 points

Good evening Professor. Sorry it took me a few more hours than I wanted to get back to you. Thank you for writing again, and for initiating the dialogue going regarding my article. I can see that you very carefully read my article, and that makes me very happy. I hope the philosophy in the article brings as much peace to you as it did/does me. From your comments, it surely seems that it does.

With respect to your question, there is not much textual evidence, of course, for such a position, since the Buddhist replacing atoms are usually described as efficient, as being вЂ?causedвЂ™ by suchness (the term I like to use for this is вЂ?autocasationвЂ™), and so forth. But I put the matter in different terms in the article, following the Humean-Buddhist model of Buddhist atomism that I put forth in the article. But as for textual evidence, note the quote from Stcherbatsky on page 67 of my article (it is as the end of his passage near the middle of the page), where he maintains that "The effect follows upon the cause, but it is not produced by it. It springs up, so to speak, out of nothing." As Stcherbatsky appears to imply by in that passage, it seems that вЂ?out of nothingвЂ™ is synonymous with вЂ?autocasationвЂ™ (вЂ?point of momentary energyвЂ™). This is the way I put the matter in my article (вЂ?out of nothing,вЂ™ вЂ?out of the voidвЂ™) and I do this in order to put Buddhist atomism more in accord with the dialogues of quantum physics. Also note that I am making a claim that is in a perhaps somewhat new vein, where I am attempting, following Stcherbatsky's way of putting it, labeling atoms as 'coming from nothing' rather than being self-generated, coming from suchness, efficient, and so forth. One of my main points in the article is to argue for a Humean-Buddhist causation: no connection of moment, no touching of moments, and thus moments come from the void and/or from themselves. As I point out in the article, this is apparently in agreement with Stcherbatsky, but not in agreement with many other Buddhists who, for example, discuss вЂ?temporal overflowвЂ™ from one moment to the next. This is Western, rather than Buddhist, causation, for reasons I point out in the article, and I also point out that the non-Buddhist position is apparently impossible. So I am disagreeing with many of the established and traditional descriptions of the replacement of atoms in Buddhism, where it is held that atoms do not come from nonbeing, they partially endure, and whatnot (I specifically point out my disagreement in the article, see on page 63, where I write: "I will argue that moments cannot interact by i) or ii). If I am correct, this would be a problem for non-Buddhists who espouse rather than reject i) and/or ii). If the Buddhist espouses i) or ii), I maintain that the Buddhist holding that causation of moments occurs by i) or ii) is susceptible to attacks from Western philosophers of time, as discussed in the previous paragraph. Rejection of i) and ii) is not the rejection of causation; rather, it is the rejection of causation by contact or relation."
I look forward to your criticism and to continued correspondence.

atomist

For anybody who is interested, later this year an article titled "Mereological Nihilism: Quantum Atomism and the Impossibility of Material Constitution" will be published in the philosophy and science journal AXIOMATHES. This article has extensive treatment of Abstract Buddhist Atomism (especially in section 2), espesially as it so very closely compares to experimental quantum physics. Right after this article is published, it will be posted on http://www.abstractatom.com/.

-Jeffrey Grupp