There is no disrespect in noting that Buddha did not address political science, or physics, or many other topics, but dealt with essentially religious questions.
I’ve no doubt that you mean this sincerely, but summarily dismissing his dealings wrt what is one of humanities most enduring existential questions rates a bit more than a and not much elsein my book anyway, but so be it.
Your sentence above creates a, what would have to be, from within your framework, a false distinction, whereby just a minute ago you were saying that before the 16th Cent things such as political science, physics, religion, were all just sort of rolled up into one ball of wax.You were asserting that before it was all mixed together, now you assert it’s separateness, which is it, in bush speak that is. What you said earlier about things being mixed up and all in, is true, and importantly so, but that point does nothing to buttress your contention regarding the absence of a scientific framework, so I wondered why you made it.
Wrt the apparent facts in your new assertion you might want to consider that wrt political science, the Buddha was the crown prince of the kingdom and was being groomed by his father as heir apparent. Common sense tells me that given the high level education he received combined with his overall position in life, that this at the least gave him a decent exposure to what you call “political science”. At the most I would assert that his teachings incorporate politics, because as you pointed out earlier this would be true by definition, by virtue of the nature of his view, which is something one could call all encompassing. You say that the Buddha did not address politics, but when some dude decides not become the King, you can bet your bottom dollar that politics has something to do with it. If you're not convinced by such inference I suggest you ask the Maoists about Buddhism. Ask of someone who remembers what happened in the Cultural Revolution, I mean doesn’t the very existence of a campaign so named tell you anything. Ask some of the younger ones for whom that old old cultural stuff is regarded almost as a folk wisdom of sorts, often in derisive ways, but’s it’s always there even if they’re at any particular instance unaware of it, because it’s just there, in a common sense sort of way. If you don’t get a chance to ask the Chinese, ask the Tibetans about the significantly politically scientific dimensions of Buddhism. Hell, ask the Tamil Tigers.
By definition, given the vexation of language there is something else, and that is that it would be impossible for the Buddha to have addressed the world in precisely your terms, because at the time of the Buddha your terms, as you define them, didn’t exist. Isn’t this asking even of the buddha a bit much. They used their own terms for things, big deal, what could you expect. Western definitions of science, physics, etc and most very definitely definitions like “political science”, came much much later on to us, so on what basis do you pick him out for not addressing the world in your terms. On the other hand his view is quite accessible to you, but you seem to not be able to recognize any scientific framework in it, and I think you are wrong, because all you have to do to is look at the absolute plethora of contemporary books on the subject to prove that he had some intriguing and enduring ideas regarding physics, perhaps not per se, as you say for he was a metaphysician but nevertheless. Einstein was not the first person to discover relativity, perhaps the first to describe it ito modern science as you say, but then again what is it that makes a physicist a physicist. As to whether or not he was a physician, you could do an easy google search on Buddhist Medicine for want of a coarse term, I haven’t done this, but I’m confident that whatever comes up will defy your characterization as being devoid of any scientific framework or method, and if that’s not enough than you can just get straight to the bottom of this by going straight to the top and googling up Medicine Buddha, eventually you will understand, resistance is futile.
Science is essentially the method that establishes confidence in alleged facts and theories about the universe.
Fine with me. I find the etymology of the word ‘science’ quite interesting, especially the suffix ‘ence’ which means according to dictionary.com,
1.State or condition: dependence.
2.Action: emergence.
and exactly how that ties into things I’ll leave to your imagination, for sure it got a booster shot, but I don’t think that this method started in the 16th C as you were asserting.
I do not propose that it supercedes either religion or philosophy.
glad to hear it, this is one of the questions in the piece which I linked below, and as they contend, Any search for the millennium's most important concept already dooms itself to myopia., but still it’s a fun read from the time of the new millennium.
But it is simply true that we know of no other period that developed the scientific framework.
I think you are flat out wrong in this The fact that something did not thrive or perpetuate according to your own definition of it, does not mean that it was never discovered and described in other, perhaps less familiar, terms. Since it’s apparent that you didn’t find the yellow emperors book to be scientific, never mind a framework of any sort, which it clearly is, just read it, then perhaps you would consider the origination of say the Chinese Calendar which is thousands and thousands of years old, but still being used today, how come. It is based on observing the phases of the moon and the position of the stars and the sun, and to say that this does not invoke the principles of modern science is just rubbish imo.
I am no expert on exactly how and when things were exactly discovered and how it all meshes together in a neat looking timeline, but I do believe that this took place thousands of years before the discovery of the Scientific Framework or method you posit, or think you own. The framework you talk of would be science as in a study of the physical world, and the method you talk of would be to come to something verifiable, repeatable and predictive. The calendar, being a representation of the scientific measurement of time, meets all your requirements. As you said some things are simply true.
The entire origination of these by now well known Chinese symbols, is based on observations from the natural physical world, and there is complete coherence from the simplest Bagua of - and - - representing at it’s most base, yin, female and yang, male (energies/principles), through the named conception of 0, thats zero, as the Void, through to what’s now known as the yin yang symbol itself, which speaks to the complementary condition, or absolute nonduality of ultimate reality, that being all of life, nature and the cosmos. That symbol was made quite simply by measuring the shadow cast by a pole in the ground, and recording the positions of the stars, from which ideation the Chinese calendar could be derived, equinoxes, solstices an all. It’s more than just a graphic sexy symbol, it describes what they observed day after day and year after year in the physical world. It was verifiable repeatable and predictive, no microscopes or telescopes required. To this day we think of a year as being 365 days long and change, where do you think this comes from, and why hasn’t anyone refuted it. If it isn’t scientifically true, what on gods green earth are we doing still using it. Of course they threw some philosophy into the mix, and this is where the two little dots come from, because ultimately they were not into dividing a reality that they knew could ultimately not be differentiated, but they needed to make it so to get their ideation to work, and to this day even though you may think of it as being in a different department, or time zone, there is still plenty of philosophy packed into even our most modern of sciences.
If by now I still have not convinced you of the evidence for scientific frameworks, that predate your assertion, then all I can do is turn to language itself and ask why you think it is that the “Chinese” alphabet is made up of pictures showing things like the sun and the moon, and why is it that someday soon, someone close to you might just decide that it’s in their interests to learn such an old and unscientific language. To me this whole affair sounds a helluva lot more scientific, than some fat cat deciding on some arbitrary start date and having the gaul to name it after himself. Talk about the difference between the rule of man and the rules of (natural) law.
I do not accept anything as being simply true, things must be investigated, so when it comes to the no other period that you note, it turns out that it does not seem to be so simply true, because while no other period was the same, still, similar things were produced in this period that you apparently think do not exist, but in fact the artifacts do. In the light of this I’m not convinced that your point is well made because it appears to be blind to any scientific framework that predates your own, so to speak. What does anything you’ve said really tell us about what is advanced and about what is modern, except that us humans, that we have discerning nature.
One other thing for sure is that the boundaries between east and west are breaking down like crazy and another thing for sure is that wrt to national security, foreign policy and our relationships with those countries and affairs with those peoples of the East, we’d better come to terms somehow with their heady ideas, such as they are these days, because they sure are coming to terms with ours. How are you going to handle a billion Jay Chens when they're after the loot and you don't have a clue what they're on about.
Another thing for sure is that it’s also for sure that science using basic elements and elementry metaphors such as earth wood fire metal and water, let alone taking actual measurements thereof, is alien to you, but sorry this doesn’t mean that it isn’t a scientific framework or that it's devoid of the scientific method. Granted it takes a bit of imagination but given your flair for fantasy you’ll get a grip of it soon enough.
It’s true what you say that so much of things had never been done before, as what started happening in the west in the 16th C, and if this means that there was a period of rapid accelerated development of the scientific framework starting in the west around the 16th C and that it’s getting faster and faster all the time and it is of me and mine and therefore it is the best then so be it. Saying so might lift it out of mundanity into lofty rhetoric, even sophistry maybe but tthen I might agree some, but until then, settle down and entertain yourself with this article, should you be thusly inclined.
Eyes Wide Open
When an obscure Arab scientist solved the riddle of light, the universe no longer belonged to God.
By RICHARD POWERS
nytimes.com
oh yeah, one last thing, the Buddha was about nothing, if not about the method. |
