Although the title of this focus issue is ‘The Possibility of Metaphysics’ the first part has as its focus not only metaphysics in general but Buddhist metaphysics in particular. This is because the motivation for this focus issue was sparked by an email from a colleague who asked for my opinion of a book written by Robert Ellis. The aspect of the ‘experimental metaphysics’ of quantum theory is examined in detail in the first article "The Matter of Mindnature" The Buddhist metaphysical viewpoint tells as the nature of ultimate reality is best understood as a fundamentally interrelated and interpenetrating field of Mind-like energy, or Mindnature, and such a view is clearly supported by the quantum violation of Bell’s inequalities. In this article I examine Ellis’s notion of the impossibility of metaphysics in the light of both philosophical considerations and the implications of the quantum evidence. The next article "Taking the‘Meta’ Out of Physics" is Ellis’s response to my criticisms of his work. I leave it to readers to come to conclusions without further comment from me. It is my hope that there will be feedback concerning the issues raised as I am personally convinced that Ellis’s position is untenable but am curious to know whether my viewpoint is widely held. Certainly the last two articles from James Kowall, ‘What is Reality in a Holographic World?’, and Brian Whitworth, ‘Introducing The Virtual Reality Conjecture’, seem to support my position.
Although the title of this focus issue is ‘The Possibility of Metaphysics’ the first part has as its focus not only metaphysics in general but Buddhist metaphysics in particular. This is because the motivation for this focus issue was sparked by an email from a colleague who asked for my opinion of a book written by Robert Ellis. The aspect of the ‘experimental metaphysics’ of quantum theory is examined in detail in the first article "The Matter of Mindnature" The Buddhist metaphysical viewpoint tells as the nature of ultimate reality is best understood as a fundamentally interrelated and interpenetrating field of Mind-like energy, or Mindnature, and such a view is clearly supported by the quantum violation of Bell’s inequalities. In this article I examine Ellis’s notion of the impossibility of metaphysics in the light of both philosophical considerations and the implications of the quantum evidence. The next article "Taking the‘Meta’ Out of Physics" is Ellis’s response to my criticisms of his work. I leave it to readers to come to conclusions without further comment from me. It is my hope that there will be feedback concerning the issues raised as I am personally convinced that Ellis’s position is untenable but am curious to know whether my viewpoint is widely held. Certainly the last two articles from James Kowall, ‘What is Reality in a Holographic World?’, and Brian Whitworth, ‘Introducing The Virtual Reality Conjecture’, seem to support my position.
In recent years there has developed a movement in the West which seeks to convince people that the original teachings of the Buddha were far more mundane than his later followers would have us believe. An extreme recent example of this is the book The Trouble with Buddhism in which Dr. Robert Ellis claims that every Buddhist who has ever lived has been ‘scandalously” confused about the central doctrines of Buddhism, especially the ‘Middle Way’ philosophy, which is a central teaching of all Buddhist schools. He also claims that if one takes Humean scepticism ‘seriously’, as he thinks one should do, it follows that it is impossible to know anything with any certainty. Metaphysics therefore become a ‘foolish’ dream. In fact according to Ellis it is “foolish” to think that quantum physics supplies “evidence about the universe itself.” This article considers Ellis’s claims regarding metaphysics and physics in detail, particularly focusing on the implications of the quantum violation of Bell’s theorem, in order to show that we must be sceptical of extreme scepticism.
I am very grateful to the Master and Fellows of Trinity College for inviting me to give the Tarner Lectures. What I want to do in this book, stated boldly and baldly, is to consider the relevance of developments in modern theoretical physics to metaphysical questions about the ultimate nature of reality. By metaphysical questions I mean the very general sorts of questions that arise out of a critical examination of the principles, concepts and fundamental presuppositions that lie behind modern physics. How should we interpret the claims that physicists seem to be making about the world? Are they intended to be understood as literally true, for example, and exactly what are those claims, given that the pages of theoretical physics monographs are largely filled with abstract mathematical formalism? In the first chapter, I shall be looking at a range of philosophical points of view in the framework of which such questions can be addressed, and attempt the difficult task of adjudicating between the different approaches. At the end of the day I shall be arguing for a pretty straightforward metaphysical realism, that the external world exists independently of our knowledge of it. In the second chapter I shall look at arguments from various branches of modern physics that are sometimes claimed to bring in an essential role for subjectivity in physics, bringing the observer into a central role, creating his own reality.
In this paper I shall argue that the notion of the ‘existence’ of a ‘Mind Independent Reality’ (MIR) is ill conceived if one understands this concept as indicating that there is some ‘ultimate’ or final aspect of reality which is absolutely and totally beyond the mind’s com-prehension or experience. By elucidating the central features of the Buddhist Mind-Only metaphysical account of the operation of the ‘three natures’ of fundamental Mindnature in the context of modern quantum physics and quantum field theory I set out to show that a ‘Metaphysics of Nondual Epiontic Quantum Mindnature’ provides a comprehensive and exhaustive account of the process of reality; an account which has no room or necessity for a mind-independent reality (MIR).
Abstract Metaphysicians should pay attention to quantum mechanics, but not because it provides definitive answers to many metaphysical questions. The theory itself is remarkably silent on the nature of the physical world, and the various interpretations of the theory on offer present conflicting ontological pictures. Rather, quantum mechanics is essential to the metaphysician because it reshapes standard metaphysical debates and opens up unforeseen new metaphysical possibilities. Even if quantum mechanics provides few clear answers, there are good reasons to think that any adequate understanding of the quantum world will result in a radical reshaping of our classical worldview in some way or other. Whatever the world is like at the atomic scale, it is almost certainly not the swarm of particles pushed around by forces that is often presupposed. This book guides readers through the theory of quantum mechanics and its implications for metaphysics in a clear and accessible way. The theory and its various interpretations are presented with a minimum of technicality. The consequences of these interpretations for metaphysical debates concerning realism, indeterminacy, causation, determinism, holism, and individuality (among other topics) are explored in detail, stressing the novel form that the debates take given the empirical facts in the quantum domain. While quantum mechanics may not deliver unconditional pronouncements on these issues, the range of possibilities consistent with our knowledge of the empirical world is relatively small—and each possibility is metaphysically revisionary in some way.
In recent decades there has been a resurge of interest in the foundations of quantum theory, partly motivated by new experimental techniques, partly by the emerging field of quantum information science. Old questions, asked since the seminal article by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen (EPR), are being revisited. The work of John Bell has changed the direction of investigation by recognising that those fundamental philosophical questions can have, after all, input from experiment. Abner Shimony has aptly termed this new field of enquiry "experimental metaphysics". The objective of this Thesis is to contribute to that body of research, by formalising old concepts, proposing new ones, and finding new results in well-studied areas. Without losing from sight that the appeal of experimental metaphysics comes from the adjective, every major result is followed by clear experimental proposals for quantum-atom optical setups.
This paper differs from any previous view in discussing quantum pure possibilities as individuals, existing independently of any observer or mind. These pure possibilities are also absolutely independent of any metaphysical or logical view that endorses the notion of possible worlds. In my view, the relationship between quantum possibilities and classical physical reality is not between reality as such, as it is in itself, and its phenomena. It is rather between fundamental or primary reality, consisting of quantum pure possibilities, on the one hand, and its actualization in what classical physics has discovered so far, on the other. As individual pure possibilities, quantum entities must be, at least ontologically, distinct and different from one another, regardless of the epistemological standing of quantum physics. Hence, quantum metaphysics is committed to the principle of the identity of indiscernibles. Finally, I analyze the two-slit experiment, interference, and entanglement in the light of my approach.