Quantum interpretations and Buddhism Part 1: Motivation

 This part deals with the ever-popular topic of quantum physics which the mystics like to use to justify, popularise, prove, or just market their product. Most of them unjustified if they had known the full picture of what is quantum physics and how little they have to do with so many things the mystics try to link them to. However, there is some link as we will explore. Thus we cannot blame the mystics fully for seeing by intuition perhaps how their field and quantum have some links. 

First, we will describe quantum physics as understood by the physics community (or roughly thereabouts) before going into the details.

1. Motivation.
2. Understanding quantum physics.
3. Historical development of quantum theory,
4. The mathematical axioms of quantum as taught to Physics majors in University to show why quantum is solid, but not satisfactory in the interpretations.
5. The various experiments which show quantum phenomenon.
6. Classical assumptions which seem to be in danger.
7. A brief overview of what each major interpretation of quantum says.
8. One by one, going through the experiments to see how each interpretation of quantum would say about it, that is how to interpret what really happened in the experiment, or how to think about the maths and experiments that we have. 
9. One by one, going through the major interpretations and what classical assumptions tradeoffs they make, as well as the philosophical implications of each interpretation for Buddhism. If you’re not a Buddhist, you can do your own thinking of it for your personal religion, having seen the example of what it means for Buddhism if this particular interpretation is true.

Motivation

As I write this chapter, analysing in detail on the interpretations of quantum and the mathematical structure, I realized that I am going a bit deep even without using equations. So it's not going to be easy for people who are not used to reading popular physics books about quantum to follow. So to motivate the Buddhists to follow, here are some questions you can keep at the back of your mind as you read the physics-heavy parts. 

 

You might have come across terms like quantum Buddhism, Buddhist emptiness and quantum agree on no reality, etc. A lot of these are very vague. What I would like to establish is to first look at what does emptiness say. 

 

Let's use the term not-self. From Dhammapada verse 279: "All phenomena (dhammas) are without self." In Mahayana, the concept of emptiness is associated with not self. What it means is empty of independent existence. If there's anything anywhere which is independently existing, one may consider that as the essence and thus a self. The purpose of seeing emptiness is to abandon attachments. We tend to attach to things which are deemed as permanent to us because we want to seek reliability. A lot of physicists are attached to physics because some may consider the physical theories as eternally true, thus reliable. However, Buddha did tell us to let go even of the Dhamma (after crossing over samsara), what's more about things which are not Dhamma. 

 

What classical physics assume is that reality doesn't depend on us observers. If we have a universe without humans or any living beings in it, those matter, physics, star formation, planet formations would still be there without any minds to observe them. It's commonly thought of in quantum that this is not true. However, Jim Baggott in his book Quantum reality does nicely list out what do we mean when we say real. 

 

Realist Proposition #1: The Moon is still there when nobody looks at it (or thinks about it). There is such a thing as objective reality.

 

Realist Proposition #2: If you can spray them, then they are real. Invisible entities such as photons and electrons really do exist.

 

Realist Proposition #3: The base concepts appearing in scientific theories represent the real properties and behaviours of real physical things. In quantum mechanics, the ‘base concept’ is the wavefunction.

 

Realist Proposition #4: Scientific theories provide insight and understanding, enabling us to do some things that we might otherwise not have considered or thought possible. This is the ‘active’ proposition. When deciding whether a theory or interpretation is realist or anti-realist, we ask ourselves what it encourages us to do.

 

Many quantum interpretations reject Realist proposition no. 3, not so much no. 1 which a lot of people misunderstood. 

 

Let's look at what Buddhism might say towards these realist propositions. 

1. Perhaps the moon is there, but no one is there to observe it, so what's the point of positing it's there. We might also imagine a very far future where all beings in samsara are liberated and attained to the final death, the physical universe is empty of sentient beings. Does the physical universe still exist? Yes, it can. Emptiness in Buddhism doesn't mean that reality must depend upon observers or sentient beings. It's enough that there are equations describing the evolutions of the physical universe and these equations show that there's no independently existing entity. Equations itself denotes dependence. It's just important to note that objective reality of physical universe doesn't mean that they are reliable, as they too are impermanent. It's just that there might not need a link to the mind for physical universe to exist on its own. What Buddhism does say is that we as sentient beings, to us, we need to link things to the mind (the 6 senses linking to 6 sense consciounsess) to acknowledge them as existing, so we cannot escape this dependence on the mind to perceive and process the eternal and internal world. So the existence of a physical universe independent of mind is a metaphysics, one which cannot be verified by anyone. An assumption, which is also not required. 
2. There's no issue with Buddhism to accept that electrons and other subatomic particles are real too. They too are impermanent, empty of inherent existence.
3. Buddhists would also say that base concepts in classical theories just live in the heads of the physicists. Nature works as it is, the understanding of nature is also dependently arising, empty of inherent nature. This is how we can let go of even physics theories. 
4. This is the main interesting part to investigate the many interpretations of quantum and Buddhism. What does it mean for Buddhism if this or that interpretation is true? Can Buddhism accomdate this or that interpretation? Does Buddhism lend more support to certain interpretations or another? 

 

To properly follow in no. 4, we need to go in a lot of detailed analysis of quantum, the experiments and interpretations, physics-heavy. So if you're disinclined to follow, just know that Buddhism doesn't require insights into quantum physics for the emptiness, not self doctrine to be useful, appliable and true. Yet, if you wish to understand deeper and not depend upon the new age and many shallow comparisons of Buddhism and quantum out there, it's good to take the plunge. 

Another important reason to go through the physics is to avoid Quantum Flapdoodle. Quantum Mysticism is one of the infamous “interpretations” where a lot of new age, spiritual type people tries to use the weirdness in quantum physics to explain the weirdness of supernormal things in spiritual pursuits. Yes, I admit I might be trying to do a bit of that as well, but I would certainly not misuse the physics. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann coined the phrase "quantum flapdoodle" to refer to the misuse and misapplication of quantum physics to other topics.

The most important thing in order not to misuse and misapply the physics is to understand it. Thus, any Dhamma teacher who wishes to even comment on quantum and Buddhism would do well to read this whole chapter seriously and properly, as well as many other popular and if possible, technical quantum physics books before using it in any Dhamma talks. We certainly do not wish to be lumped together with the quantum quackeries of the New Age people. 

To add on, if ever you’re starting to wonder why physicists bother with quantum despite it being so complicated, obscure in giving no picture of reality and too many interpretations, just know that it is due to quantum that our modern electronics world exists. It is due to quantum that computers can fit into your pocket as your smartphones. It’s due to quantum that we build the Large Hadron Collider, predicted the Higgs Boson and discovered it. It’s due to quantum that we have the most accurate match between theory prediction and experimental discovery. It’s due to quantum that atoms are stable, that stars can undergo nuclear fusion to supply us with low entropic energy. 

In the 19th century, electricity changed the world, in the 20th century, quantum changed the world, in the 21st century, with the coming of quantum computers and quantum internet, it will change the world again. 

It is also about power. Nuclear bombs are possible only because we understand nuclear physics, and nuclear physics is very much in the quantum realm. Ever since the atomic bomb exploded, physics had gain the respect of being the science with the power to change the world. It’s funny that back then, more focus is given to the application of quantum rather than interpretations of quantum. And so, a theory which is close to a hundred years old now still have no clear picture of how to interpret it, nor is there a good popular book which covers the majority of the interpretation, only those few more popular ones gets quoted now and again. Only in 2020 did we get Quantum Reality by Jim Baggott. He covered ten quantum interpretations, but I will cover more and in a bit more detail in some aspects, less in other aspects. 

It’s good to examine your own motivation of why would you want to compare quantum to Buddhism, is it because of power too? To make use of the prestige of physics and quantum?