[Buddha-l] Re: Where does authority for "true" Buddhism come from?

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Benito Carral schreef:

>On Saturday, January 28, 2006, Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:
>
>  
>
>>You  certainly  are.  The  typical  requirement  of a
>>scientific theory is, that it has been proved (or not
>>yet been falsified).
>>    
>>
>
>   I  suppose  that  it all depends of what you mean by
>"proved."  I  have studied enough philosophy of science
>to  know  what science is about. It has been one of the
>most mind-opening exercises I have done over the years.
>
>  
>
OK, let me explain at least what I think about this. I like to view 
things as plain as possible. What is proof? The proof is in the pudding. 
If the weatherperson predicts rain, the actual rain is the proof. If I 
want to know why the weatherperson is always right, I'll ask him or her 
about the theory. The theory has been proved by its own consistency and 
the succesfull predictions, because this sahaworld is made up of 
causality. I know that sciencific theories are not the truth and that 
they're liable to change, but we accept them without saying by trusting 
the technology that has been developed from them. If we send a satellite 
to Pluto and it really gets there, we must be doing something right, 
ain't it?
If you want to prove the idea of rebirth, you must do this through 
experiments. AFAIK no case of memory from a former life has conclusively 
been proved. In the most pertinent cases you have to suppose the 
possiblility of mindreading. The only hard case is the Shri Lankan boy 
who sang suttas in old Pali, but I'm not sure how hard this is.
At the most it would prove that rebirth of memes is possible, but not 
that rebirth always happens as a law of nature.
Now if a lama defends the idea of rebirth saying that the tulku choses 
without mistake his belongings of his former life from a random 
collection, he plays the science game and so recognises its value. But 
in a sloppy way, his 'experimental proof' is not conclusive, it must be 
done under controllable circumstances and double blind. The science 
tradition has learned to exclude possible mistakes and fraud and this 
helped a lot in making theories work.
Moreover the theory sucks, the rebirth-concsiousness is a conundrum and 
not consistent with the anaatmavaada.

-- 


Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms