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Reflections on science, spiritual teachings, and mystical philosophy, by Thomas McFarlane
An Analogy between Math and Empirical Science
Empirical science is distinguished from mathematics primarily in one crucial respect: while mathematics requires that its propositions conform to pure logic, empirical science requires in addition that its propositions conform to empirical data. Because mathematics is unconstrained by the contingencies and uncertainties of empirical data, it has the virtue of great certainty and generality in […]
Posted in: Philosophy, Science
Suffering is Proportional to Resistance
December 29, 2010
An earlier post entitled Substantiality is Inversely Proportional to Ponderability discussed an insight of Franklin Merrell-Wolff which proposes a relationship between recognition of transcendent reality, or Substantiality, to cognition of objectivity, or Ponderability. Because of their inverse relationship, the more one experiences a world of ponderable objects, the less one recognizes transcendent Substantiality. This relationship can […]
Posted in: Philosophy, Spiritual Practice
Contemplating the nature of time
February 21, 2010
A previous post explored the question of whether time has an objective existence. In this post, we continue this investigation in a more contemplative way. Consider, for example, the sound of a train passing by not far away. Our conventional and habitual way of interpreting such auditory phenomena is to imagine a thing called a […]
Posted in: Philosophy, Spiritual Practice
Symmetry, Invariance, and Objectivity
May 16, 2009
Symmetry is intimately related to the idea of invariance, the persistence of something amidst change (e.g., changes in time, space, or perspective). This is also one meaning of objectivity. Thus, symmetry is a key to understanding the objective world, as is well known in physics. The basic idea here is not confined to the esoteric […]
Posted in: Philosophy, Science
The Empirical Emergence of Time and Space
March 22, 2009
A keystone of modern science is the view that everything physical exists within time and space. Of course, these notions have themselves gone through radical revision, but they still form the basis for formulations of modern physics, and only recently have some theoretical physicists begun to consider the possibility that time and space might emerge […]
Posted in: Philosophy, Science
The Imaginary Collapse of the Wavefunction
March 22, 2009
The so-called “collapse” of the wave function in quantum theory is often illustrated by the wave/particle duality. When a photon propagates through a double-slit apparatus, it behaves like a wave. Yet, if it is observed, the non-local wave is collapsed into a single localized particle. However, both theory and experiment show that this is not […]
Posted in: Philosophy, Science
Uniting Heaven and Earth
February 1, 2009
The heavens have long symbolized the eternal, changeless perfection of the divine, while the earth has symbolized the ephemeral, changing flux of existence. Since ancient times, this division of heaven and earth has been a profound symbol of the separation humans feel from their divine source. We experience ourselves as ephemeral beings exiled from the […]
Posted in: Philosophy, Science
About the Author
Thomas McFarlane is the author of Einstein and Buddha: The Parallel Sayings. A graduate of Stanford University in physics, he also holds advanced degrees in mathematics and in philosophy and religion. View author profile on Google+
January 17, 2012
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