Photo by Linus Mimietz.
Date: April 1–3, 2022
Venue: University of California, Berkeley, Alumni House, Toll Room
Workshop: Buddhism, Physics, and Philosophy Redux
The philosophical problems that emerged with the advent of quantum mechanics in the early 20th century are still very much with us. Issues like the measurement problem, entanglement and nonlocality, wave-particle complementarity, and so on, force us to ask: do the formulations of QM refer to a real, mind-independent world, or are they merely a means of predicting what appears when we go looking? Do concepts like “wave-function,” “particle,” “field,” “time,” and so on reference things that exist in and of themselves, or are they merely nominal or pragmatic constructs? Much has been written on these questions over the last century, yet there is still nothing like consensus on the issues.
Curiously, many analogous philosophical quandaries emerged in Buddhist thought centuries ago, as Buddhist philosophers struggled to understand the relationship between how the world appears and how the world is, as well as the status of our theories about the appearance-reality distinction. Buddhist notions of “dependent origination” (pratītyasamutpāda), and “discriminative construction” (vikalpa), for example, raise issues that are structurally analogous to the problems raised by the measurement problem and wave-particle complementarity, and the competing Buddhist approaches to these problems parallel, in many respects, competing theories in QM.
The early attempts in the 70s to initiate a conversation between Buddhism and theoretical physics are now widely disparaged. The problem, in part, is that the participants in those early conversations, while knowledgeable about QM, often lacked a sophisticated appreciation of Asian and Buddhist philosophy. This workshop will bring together a small group of physicists, philosophers, and scholars of Buddhism to see if it might be possible and fruitful to restart the conversation.
Program:
Friday April 1:
1:10-1:15 pm: Welcome and introductory comments
1:15-4:15 pm: Panel 1, Chair: Adam Frank
- Carlo Rovelli (Aix-Marseille Université): “The ‘Relational’ Interpretation of Quantum Theory and Nāgārjuna’s Arguments against Independent Existence”
- Jay Garfield (Smith College and Harvard Divinity School): “Emptiness and Temporality: What Madhyamaka and Yogācāra Can Tell us About Time and How We Experience It”
- Jessica Wilson (University of Toronto): “Quantum and Buddhist Indeterminacy”
4:15-4:30 pm: Break
4:30-6:30 pm: Panel 2, Chair: Francesca Vidotto
- Chris Fuchs (University of Massachusetts Boston): “QBism for Buddhism”
- Huw Price (University of Cambridge): “Time for Pragmatism”
Saturday April 2:
10 am-12 pm: Panel 3, Chair: Jenann Ismael
- Michel Bitbol (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique): “Two Dimensions of Interdependence: Relational Quantum Mechanics or QBist Relativity”
- Evan Thompson (University of British Columbia): “The Subject of Time.”
12-2 pm: Lunch
2-4 pm: Panel 4, Chair: Jessica Wilson
- Robert Sharf (University of California, Berkeley): “On What Physicists Can Learn from Medieval Buddhist Debates over the Nature of Time”
- Craig Callender (University of California, San Diego): “The Flowing Self”
4-4:30 pm: Break
4:30-6:30 pm: Panel 5, Chair: Chris Fuchs
- Jenann Ismael (Columbia University): “A Participatory Universe in the Realist Mode”
- Marcelo Gleiser (Dartmouth College): “Cosmos, Self, Time: A Critical Evaluation”
Sunday April 3:
9:30 am-12:30 pm: Panel 5, Chair: Jay Garfield
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- Francesca Vidotto (University of Western Ontario): “The Relational Ontology of Contemporary Physics”
Adam Frank (University of Rochester): “The Relative and the Absolute: Buddhist Philosophy, The Boundaries of
- Physics and the Physics of Boundaries”
- John Dunne (University of Wisconsin, Madison): “Empty Explanations”
12:30-1 pm: open discussion and closing remarks, Chair: Robert Sharf
See “Workshop & Lecture Series: Buddhism, Physics, and Philosophy Redux” abstracts here.
This workshop is made possible by generous gifts from the Ting Tsung and Wei Fong Chao Foundation, the Glorisun Global Buddhist Network, the Tianzhu Global Network for the Study of Buddhist Cultures, and the Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai.
Event Contact: CA, buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510-643-5104
Access Coordinator: Sanjyot Mehendale, buddhiststudies@berkeley.edu, 510-643-5104
