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Buddhism and numbers incompatible?

Loriciferan Universe

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There is a philosophical precept in Buddhism based on the “interrelationship of all things”, kinda like the idea of “the universe in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour”, although I am pretty sure this is a lower-level understanding of the principle. To me it seems like the point is that there IS no grain of sand, there is no eternity. Just like the way light and dark are two sides of a spectrum, not different unique bodies. Our consciousness likes to lump things into categories because we view the world through a very narrow spectrum. As Alan Watts put it (I’m paraphrasing here): looking through a crack in a fence you see a cat walk by very close to the fence. First you see the head, then the tail. This happens multiple times and you thus make a rule to describe the phenomenon: head causes tail. In truth the head and tail are both part of the same cat, but looking through your tiny crack (consciousness) you can only see the head and then the tail.

So if this is true than there are no discrete things, nothing stands alone and in truth nothing really stands at all. So with that said... what of numbers? If there is no single discrete thing in the universe, than you can’t say there is 1 of anything, or 2. The Buddhist philosophy makes sense, but so do numbers. Am I suffering from cognitive dissonance, holding two contradictory ideas as being equally true, or is there something I haven’t thought of that explains this. :confused:
 
Hi and welcome to the forum.

It would seem that since you are reading these words, we are here and we exist. Perhaps for a Buddhist, numbers are 'here' in the same sense. Some things do seem to exist whether we believe in them or not.

Just my personal opinion and it may be too harsh, but when I read Alan Watts my attention really wanders. I put him up there with Deprek Copra in clarity and meaningfulness. (That is, 'not very').
 
To me it seems like the point is that there IS no grain of sand, there is no eternity.
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So if you go to the beach, and pick up a grain of sand--what is that, an illusion? I'm not that familiar with Buddhism, but what you're describing is sounding to me like brain in a vat--is that the idea? Solipsism?

If there are no numbers, then there are zero numbers. Zero is a number! Do I win something?
 
Zero is NOT a number; zero is a placeholder.

And if you get right down to it, a grain of sand really isn't, is it? That's just a convenient label we apply to a particular aggragate of atoms and sub-atomic structures at that particular location in spacetime...
 
jimtron said:
So if you go to the beach, and pick up a grain of sand--what is that, an illusion? I'm not that familiar with Buddhism, but what you're describing is sounding to me like Brain in a vat-is that the idea? Solipsism?
If there are no numbers, then there are zero numbers. Zero is a number! Do I win something?
Click to expand...

Prize: sand :)

No, I don’t think that’s what it means, I gave up on solipsism a long time ago. If I understand correctly it’s more like this: All of our senses are advanced versions of touch, that is, ways to detect mass/vibration. Seeing is based on light WAVES, sound on sound WAVES, touch on the vibration of molecules etc. We are making distinction based on wave patterns. We say, oh, that pattern is different than this one, so these things are fundamentally different But if you were looking at water in a vat, you might distinguish a ripple from a swell but you wouldn’t assume that the ripple is made of different stuff than the swell is.

I’m not good enough on the sand issue to clarify more than what I said above. Maybe to say it “doesn’t exist” is not correct. Rather, it is interconnected to everything else, and thus, is not a separate little thing alone and by itself. To call it a grain of sand ignores everything else that it is connected to.
 
To call it a grain of sand ignores everything else that it is connected to.
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How exactly is a grain of sand connected to everything else?

So if this is true than there are no discrete things, nothing stands alone and in truth nothing really stands at all.
Click to expand...
What about a starving child? Is the child not discrete? Does the child not have an empty stomach? If the child is connected to food, why is she hungry?

I'm not asking these questions rhetorically, but to try to understand this concept. To me it seems interesting but abstract, and not necessarily useful.
 
I still do not see the problem with Buddhists believing in numbers, except that perhaps they are a barrier like everything else.

We assign labels to the perceived patterns and packages of the universe for 'easier handling'. If there is a paradox, it seems it is this tendency to create labels. Our labels can become a barrier between understanding something as it really is, and as we labeled it. Numbers are just another kind of label.
 
Yes, but a number is really just a concept, right? If you don't have a label for "2," you could still have the idea of it. Same with the grain of sand. Regardless of its label, or whether it has one or not, it still exists as a discrete object. Before there was language, grains of sand existed. Or am I missing something?
 
It is true that Eastern philosophy has a mostly non-mathematical founding for itself, and expresses itself in a more physically-attached way. Ideas of quantity and number are much less relevant to Eastern philosophy, but this is more of a semantic propensity than an unrecoverable disposition. We would both readily agree that math is about getting as specific as possible. Where we may (depending on who; not culturally) disagree is any signifigance that numbers can truely lend to understanding reality.

An Eastern philosopher may claim that an intimate feeling towards the natural world, with a focus on a lucid account of unmeasurable change is most important; a Western philosopher, while recognizing this, might also make a charge of realism -- a superior understanding of the world through expressable models. I'd side more with the Easterner here, but I think more than he, I recognize the value in how understanding of a more specific model can give me insight into how I should feel about the world around me.
 
I guess my thought would be that the thing that '2' represents is only meaningful because we agree it is. "2" is a label.
 
Is Buddhism a philosophy, or religion? Or both? Neither?
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Both. It is in essence a philosophy, but religion, as a cultural phenomenon, transformed it (into many horrible forms, in my opinion). It is actually more respectable in the Western world; in the East, common people have surrounded it with lots of supernatural mumbo-jumbo. Just look at the Dali Llama.
 
l0rca said:
It is true that Eastern philosophy has a mostly non-mathematical founding for itself, and expresses itself in a more physically-attached way. Ideas of quantity and number are much less relevant to Eastern philosophy, but this is more of a semantic propensity than an unrecoverable disposition. We would both readily agree that math is about getting as specific as possible. Where we may (depending on who; not culturally) disagree is any signifigance that numbers can truely lend to understanding reality.
Click to expand...

Yeah. I’ve heard people speculate that part of the reason many eastern peoples progressed little in the area of science is because of a belief system that did not allow for “fragmentation” of phenomenon, although I’m not so sure the former statement is all that true. So sure, “2" might just be another agreed upon symbol, but the problem is that it is not consciously seen as such by most ppl. Math, physics, all these things do an amazing job explaining the universe, right up to a certain point (moments after the big bang, the really tiny and really big things, making the really tiny things fit with the really big things). Could the break-down in math/physics at key points be a result of our silly, yet efficient little “name game”? And if we recognize the fault is ours, now what?

I personally vote we all head off to a Buddhist monastery and mediate our lives away, but I’m intervened and bitter, so I may be biased.
 
Loriciferan Universe said:
As Alan Watts put it (I’m paraphrasing here): looking through a crack in a fence you see a cat walk by very close to the fence. First you see the head, then the tail. This happens multiple times and you thus make a rule to describe the phenomenon: head causes tail. In truth the head and tail are both part of the same cat, but looking through your tiny crack (consciousness) you can only see the head and then the tail.
Click to expand...

But the crack in the fence is real, and limits our view.
It would be nice to be able to see everything all at once. But we cannot. And we must form our concept of the world on what we experience of it.

“the universe in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour”
Click to expand...

I would connect this to the other bit by saying,
It would be nice if I could look at a grain of sand and learn everything I needed to know about the universe. But I can't. Or, at least, I don't know how.

Ditto for an hour and the history of the universe.

So if this is true than there are no discrete things, nothing stands alone and in truth nothing really stands at all. So with that said... what of numbers? If there is no single discrete thing in the universe, than you can’t say there is 1 of anything, or 2. The Buddhist philosophy makes sense, but so do numbers. Am I suffering from cognitive dissonance, holding two contradictory ideas as being equally true, or is there something I haven’t thought of that explains this. :confused:
Click to expand...

Again, I would make the connection thus:
Can I learn everything about numbers by considering the number one?

Maths kind of unpacks itself from a small number of axioms. I got a U on geography O-level (So bad, they couldn't grade it!) But an A in maths and physics.

The former subject requires a lot of data memorisation. The latter I found easier because what I forgot I could work out from what I remembered. I did both without any revision. Hence the results.

I think the maths example, though falling short, comes closer to fitting the requirements of learning the whole from a study of a part. So far from knocking your faith in the earlier ideas, it should have bolstered it.

Did you like maths at school? Or did you feel that maths was rote memorisation, and geography was more natural?
 
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Loriciferan Universe said:
There is a philosophical precept in Buddhism based on the “interrelationship of all things”, kinda like the idea of “the universe in a grain of sand and eternity in an hour”, although I am pretty sure this is a lower-level understanding of the principle. To me it seems like the point is that there IS no grain of sand, there is no eternity. Just like the way light and dark are two sides of a spectrum, not different unique bodies. Our consciousness likes to lump things into categories because we view the world through a very narrow spectrum. As Alan Watts put it (I’m paraphrasing here): looking through a crack in a fence you see a cat walk by very close to the fence. First you see the head, then the tail. This happens multiple times and you thus make a rule to describe the phenomenon: head causes tail. In truth the head and tail are both part of the same cat, but looking through your tiny crack (consciousness) you can only see the head and then the tail.

So if this is true than there are no discrete things, nothing stands alone and in truth nothing really stands at all. So with that said... what of numbers? If there is no single discrete thing in the universe, than you can’t say there is 1 of anything, or 2. The Buddhist philosophy makes sense, but so do numbers. Am I suffering from cognitive dissonance, holding two contradictory ideas as being equally true, or is there something I haven’t thought of that explains this. :confused:
Click to expand...

Well there are number of interpretations of what interdependant nature means, there are the twelve nidanas of being, then each person and object has a contingent history, so one has a hard time viewing things in isolation. that man went nuts and killed someone, may not be an accurate description of the event.

Numbers only exist in the judgement passed by humans.
 
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Math, physics, all these things do an amazing job explaining the universe, right up to a certain point (moments after the big bang, the really tiny and really big things, making the really tiny things fit with the really big things). Could the break-down in math/physics at key points be a result of our silly, yet efficient little “name game”? And if we recognize the fault is ours, now what?
Click to expand...

We haven't figured everything out (yet anyway) with science--certainly it has limits. But what system is better? As Carl Sagan in "Demon Haunted World" said, (paraphrasing from memory) "if something better/more effective than science comes along, I'm all for it". Can Buddhism explain what happened moments after the big bang, or really tiny/big things, etc?

Is there evidence that all things are interconnected? Is there evidence that Buddhism can accurately explain the universe? Other religions make this claim, but I'm skeptical. It's not enough to have an explanation--evidence is required. But this is why I asked if Buddhism is a religion, philosophy, or something else. If it's a religion, it doesn't require evidence. Religions make claims and a leap of faith is required to believe them, unlike with science.
 
jimtron said:
How exactly is a grain of sand connected to everything else?


What about a starving child? Is the child not discrete? Does the child not have an empty stomach? If the child is connected to food, why is she hungry?

I'm not asking these questions rhetorically, but to try to understand this concept. To me it seems interesting but abstract, and not necessarily useful.
Click to expand...

here we get to some of the interesting myths of buddhism.

"the world is illusion"

that is not what the buddha taught, the buddha did not argue about the ontology or existance of the world, he made an argument that there is no place for the self to reside (jason believes differently), all in the world is transitory and changing. there is no place for a self to reside, there is a body, there are sensation, there are thoughts, there are feelings, there are habits but the idea of 'me' outside of this aggregate of body, sensations, thought, emotions and habits does not exist. so too numbers do not exist they are human constructs.
 
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