🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Sep23.190947.1244@galois.mit.edu> jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:
>I realise that this has little to do with physics by now, but if
>you are going to try to turn physicists on to Eastern philosophy
>you might as well give some precise information, rather than vague
>remarks like the above, which will probably only strengthen their
>opinion that it's all a bunch of mush.  It's not, it's very interesting,
>and it might even help one be a better scientist to know some.

I think it's very misleading to classify modes of thought as Eastern
versus Western.  One curious thing that happens when people talk about
"Eastern mysticism" as opposed to "Western rationalism" is that they 
seem to forget about Eastern schools of thought which are rationalistic
and Western schools of thought which are mystic.

One curious example of this is the fact that almost every book on
"Eastern mystic philosophies" leaves out Confucianism.  If you were to
read the "Tao of Physics" or the "Dancing Wu-li Masters," you wouldn't
know at all that Confucianism exists, much less that it was one of the
most influential if not the most influential philosophy in China for
over two thousand years.  The reason for this is that the Confucianism
tends to look down at mysticism and hence doesn't fit at all into the
idea that "Eastern" philosophy is more mystical than "Western"
philosophy.  Hence most writers who talk about "Eastern mysticism" try
to ignore it (as they ignore "Legalism", "Mohism", and "Maoism").

On thing that's important to note is that the attempt to mix science
and Eastern philosophy seems mainly to be a Western effort which has
little impact on scientists from the East.  Every scientist that I
know from China practices science in exactly the same way as their
Western counterparts.  Indeed, I suspect that public attitudes toward
science in China are much more positive than public attitudes toward
it in the United States.

I know of one Buddhist who is also a scientist, and he seems to
reconcile his beliefs exactly the same way a devout Catholic scientist
would reconcile science and Catholicism.  In other words, he doesn't
mix the two.