October 2024
Science and philosophy often are juxtaposed when, in fact, they both hold that there are forces visible and invisible to the human eye. This is explored in a preprint article in journal Qeios, “Bridging Classical and Quantum Physics Through the Lens of Buddhist Doctrine“. David Leong, PhD, discusses how both quantum mechanics and poxiang (a Buddhist concept) refer to the deconstruction of appearances or forms.
In classical physics, forms appear discrete and as having fixed properties, but quantum mechanics challenges this view. Phenomena like superposition, entanglement, and “the observer effect” hold that reality is fluid and contingent on interactors. Particles such as quarks, leptons, and bosons are not static entities but dynamic excitations within quantum fields. They lack definite properties until they are measured. In that sense, the apparent solidity of objects or bodies is superficial and illusory.
While the Nobel Prize in physics 2022 upholds this approach, the mainstream world of science and media don’t appear to have fully recognised the transformative significance and spiritual implications of this. That is a notable factor that may keep the general public uninformed of the commonality between the work of laureates John Clauser, Alain Aspect, and Anton Zeilinger, and Buddhist philosophy.
The research of Clauser, Aspect and Zeilinger confirmed long-standing enigmas of quantum mechanics. Through their experiments with entangled photons, they have corroborated predictions of quantum entanglement, which proves nonlocality.
This is reflected in Buddhist teachings, particularly those related to the concept of emptiness (unyata), whereby “all phenomena are understood to be devoid of intrinsic nature and to arise dependent on causes and conditions (nagarjuna, mulamadhyamakakarika)”, Leong writes.
“The impermanence and illusion of fixed forms in Buddhist doctrine can be seen as metaphors for the collapse of the quantum wave function into a definite state upon observation.”
David Leong is an entrepreneurship theorist with a complementary research interest in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy. In 2021 he published “Uncertainty, Timing and Luck on Quantum Terms in Entrepreneurship“.
Anders Bolling
