About the Seminars--Approaching Reality
Physics and Buddhist Spirituality
Lars English, Physics/Astronomy 10:30 TTh
While the world produced by science, the technical, industrial world, is growing more materialistic, science itself is growing more immaterial.” So spoke Harlem-Renaissance thinker Jean Toomer in the 1930s, but this statement is arguably more evident today than ever, at least with regard to physics. This seminar will examine the unlikely intersection between Buddhism and modern physics. The former is concerned with the internal, experiential world explored through meditation, the latter with the objective, external world mapped out by instrumental measurement. That there should be any convergence between the two is thus all the more fascinating.
We will focus on the Buddhist notions of selflessness and emptiness on the one hand, and the conceptual foundation of quantum mechanics on the other. We will also examine both the role of emptiness in the larger context of Buddhist thought, and the broader role of quantum mechanics in contemporary physics. Since within Buddhism, mere intellectual understanding is only valuable if it leads to a deeper, transformative experience, we will encounter some aspects of meditation as well.
reality.net
Susan Feldman, Philosophy 1:30 MTh
What is reality? Is the world really as it appears to us, or is it very different? Does science reveal reality better than common sense and ordinary experience? Could there be multiple realities? How can we tell what is truly real? Does it matter if we cannot? Is appearance always inferior to reality? Would life spent in a dream world, or in a virtual community in cyberspace, always be less valuable than one spent in the real world? Questing after reality, as well as questioning it, continues to captivate philosophical and popular imagination.
In this seminar, we will reflect on these and related questions, using both traditional and contemporary philosophical writings (Plato, Descartes, Berkeley, Kant, Putnam, Nozick), as well as popular sources (Ursula LeGuin’s novella The Lathe of Heaven, and films such as The Matrix, Waking Life, The Truman Show, and eXistenZ).
