Trinh Xuan Thuan - "The Quantum and the Lotus" - Part I

This is a continuation of Criticism is Easy. I will demonstrate it right here by criticizing a particular piece written by a prolific and original author – namely Trinh Xuan Thuan, a Professor of Astronomy at the University of Virginia. Trinh Xuan Thuan is well known to the general public for his books. But here I will address his contribution to “The Boundaries of Knowledge in Buddhism, Christianity and Science”. Trinh Xuan Thuan is presented there as follows:

His field of specialty is Big Bang nucleosynthesis and galaxy formation and evolution. He has written several acclaimed books for the general public including “The Quantum and the Lotus” (2001) which explores the many remarkable connections between the ancient teachings of Buddhism and the findings of modern science.

The paper by Thuan is twenty pages long and is addressed to philosophers rather than to the general public, therefore one would expect it to be somewhat more precise than his popular science books. But I will dare to make a serious criticism of some of its parts, with the aim of being as nasty as possible, and yet I will do my best to sustain a scientific level of discussion – thus I will avoid pushing the readers’ emotional buttons – as it often happens when critics and debunkers aim at simply ruining someone’s reputation.

Perhaps I should start with the fact that I have downloaded from Internet Thuan’s impressive Curriculum Vitae and checked that in his listed over 150 scientific publications there is not even one that is devoted to the foundational problems of quantum theory – Thuan is an astrophysicist after all. And yet in his books, and in his article that I am going to criticize, a lot of space is devoted to the fundamental questions of quantum theory. To make errors in an unfamiliar territory is especially easy, that is why I will concentrate on this area. Of course it is easy to understand why Thuan is devoting so much attention to quantum theory: Quantum theory is quite often being discussed in relation to Buddhist, and, more generally, Eastern philosophy, which Thuan seems to advocate.

"The Quantum and the Lotus”

Before going into details, let me outline Thuan’s philosophical position – as far as I can guess from his many writings. First of all Thuan stresses that while in other religions Science and religion are separated, nevertheless, a fruitful dialogue can be established between the spiritual tradition of Buddhism and Science. But Buddhism is not interested in learning the truth about the world outside. Truth in Buddhism, as I understand, has no value itself. It has a value only as far as it can lead to “enlightenment”.

What is enlightenment? In “Quantum and the Lotus: A Journey To The Frontiers Where Science And Buddhism Meet” we find a dialogue between Trinh Xuan Thuan and a Buddhist monk, Matthieu Ricard. 

So I am given to understand that Ricard is a knowledgeable man in the matter of Buddhism, and from his book “Happiness A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill” 

Public Talk by Ven. Matthieu Ricard - The Altruism Revolution

I infer that enlightenment can be also characterized as “happiness” or “a state of a continuous bliss.” Therefore if a given Truth will make a given person unhappy, then such a Truth will be of no interest for a Buddhist. If I am right with this interpretation, then it should be no surprise to find out that Thuan selects only those truths that fit his philosophy. Other truths, in particular those that contradict his arbitrarily taken philosophy, he avoids. We will see how it works in the examples that follow.

To be continued ....

P.S.1. Thesis

Self-reference paradox: Is Confucius hard on himself? Or hard on others here?

P.S.2. Antithesis

Compare this one  with P.S.1.

P.S.3. Synthesis

P.S.4. Posts about Science, so far

1.  Talking about Science: 1 Boys and Frogs 
2. Talking about Science: 2 Poincaré and The Search for Truth
3. Talking about Science: 3 Tony Smith and “arXiv.org” 
4. Carlos Castro Perelman and the tide 
5. Bertrand Russell and Independence in Science 
6. Questions About Science: Is Science rational?
7. The Taboo of Subjectivity 
8. Can Science be just?
9. Einstein and Klein, Plagiarism 
10. Religion and Science – cruel Gods 
11. Bertrand Russell and “A Way of Feeling" 
12. Plato and The Value of Myths and Parables 
13. Cronus and Uranus 
14. Defining "Science" 
15. Wrong use of Science 
16. Curiosity, intellectual freedom and Science 
17. The Curiosity of Alfred Russel Wallace 
18. The Encyclopedia Universalis Twists the Truth 
19. Clifford’s Solution
20. Language Barriers Make Knowledge Barriers 
21. Forbidden Science 
22. You Shall Know Them by Their Fruits 
23. No True Science Allowed! A Priori Assumptions Prevail 
24. William Crookes and the Paranormal: True Science 
25. Ray Hyman and Modern Apathy: To Explain Away and Dismiss
26. Dangerous to be Curious? Quantum Future - Gossip and Censorship 
27. A Brush With the Dark Side of Science 
28. Brian D. Josephson on Censorship in Science 
29. Silence is the greatest persecution
30. The case of Grigori Perelman and When bad men combine, the good must associate
31. Criticism is easy
32. Trinh Xuan Thuan - "The Quantum and the Lotus" - Part I
33. Trinh Xuan Thuan - "The Quantum and the Lotus" - Part II

P.S.5. Reading Penrose, "Road to Reality", p. 328-329:

"Perhaps there is a more general mathematical equation, or evolution principle of some coherent mathematical kind, which has both U and R as limiting approximations?".

Not "approximations"! This is PDP - piecewise deterministic process used in EEQT (partly "rediscovered" in the "hybrid" quantum-classical approach). Pity that Penrose did not know about it when writing his book!

P.S.6. 

P.S.7. With real pride I report that Laura's labors, her collecting the data, were not in vain. Cited in

"A concept for providing warning of earth impacts by small asteroids"

by D. W. Dunham, H. J. Reitsema, E. Lu, R. Arentz, R. Linfield, C. Chapman, R. Farquhar, A. A. Ledkov, N. A. Eismont, and E. Chumachenko

Abstract—The atmospheric detonation of a 17 m-asteroid above Chelyabinsk, Russia on 2013 February 15 shows  that  even  small  asteroids  can  cause  extensive  damage.  Earth-based  telescopes  have  found  smaller harmless objects, such as 2008 TC3, a 4 m-asteroid that was discovered 20h before it exploded over northeastern Sudan (Jenniskens, 2009). 2008 TC3 remains the only asteroid discovered before it hit Earth because it approached Earth from the night side, where it was observed by large telescopes searching for near–Earth objects (NEO’s). The larger object that exploded over Chelyabinsk approached Earth from the day side, from too close to the Sun to be detected from Earth. A sizeable telescope in an orbit about the Sun–Earth L1 (SE-L1) libration point could find objects like the “Chelyabinsk” asteroid approaching approximately from the line of sight to the Sun about a day before Earth closest approach. Such a system would have the astrometric accuracy needed to determine the time and impact zone for a NEO on a collision course. This would give at least several hours, and usually 2–4 days, to take protective measures, rather than the approximately two-minute interval between the flash and shock wave arrival that occurred in Chelyabinsk. A perhaps even more impor- tant reason for providing warning of these events, even smaller harmless ones that explode high in the atmo- sphere with the force of an atomic bomb, is to prevent mistaking such an event for a nuclear attack that could trigger a devastating nuclear war. A concept using a space telescope similar to that needed for an SE-L1 monitoring satellite, is already conceived by the B612 Foundation, whose planned Sentinel Space Telescope could find nearly all 140 m and larger NEO’s, including those in orbits mostly inside the Earth’s orbit that are hard to find with Earth-based telescopes, from a Venus-like orbit (Lu, 2013). Few modifications would be needed to the Sentinel Space Telescope to operate in a SE-L1 orbit, 0.01 AU from Earth towards the Sun, to find most asteroids larger than about 5 meters that approach the Earth from the solar direction. The spacecraft would scan 165 square degrees of the sky around the Earth every hour, finding asteroids when they are bright- est (small phase angle) as they approach Earth. We will undertake Monte Carlo studies to see what fraction of asteroids 5 m and larger approaching from the Sun might be found by such a mission, and how much warning time might typically be expected. Also, we will check the overall coverage for all Earth-approaching NEO’s, including ground-based observations and observations by the recently-launched NEOSSat, which may best fill any gaps in coverage between that provided by an SE-L1 telescope and ground-based surveys. Many of the objects as large as 50 m, like the one that created Meteor Crater in Arizona, will not be found by current NEO surveys, while they would usually be seen by this possible mission even if they approached from the direction of the Sun. We should give better warning for future “Bolts out of the blue.” DOI: 10.1134/S0038094613040096