Chapter 5 A kind of spiritual science? -2

Jean-François – Well, that's interesting, because this resembles a school of psychology that was one of the most important schools of the twentieth century.This is what is known as Gestalt Psychology, or Gestalt Psychologie, which was born at the beginning of the twentieth century and exported to France in a brilliant book.The author is Paul Guillaume, a professor I once studied at the Sorbonne University.He wrote a book more than fifty years ago called Gestalt Psychology, which is still popular today.This is truly a model of clarity and precision in writing.Gestalt school of psychology arose out of the demonstration that psychology, in its essence, has hitherto been analytic, that is, it has always been believed that our perception of objects is an building.We think that we arrive at the final complete object bit by bit, but in fact, the real process-Gestalt psychology originated from the experimental method of experience in the laboratory-is the synthesis of our perception all at once. Whole (ensembles synthetiques).Recent theories of the cognitive sciences with regard to the concepts of "complexity" and "self-organization" also pose the question of general feeling in terms that can be contrasted with this Buddhist analysis.Gestalt psychology itself has been questioned, however, a question that had been posed in almost the same terms by Buddhists in the study of perception six hundred years before Jesus Christ.

① German: Gestalt psychology, or transliterated as Gestalt psychology. Mathieu—No object is permanent. The subtle impermanence of things is reflected in the fact that objects are changing every moment.Since consciousness is initiated by objects, there are as many moments of consciousness as there are states of non-durable objects.This notion of the momentary impermanence of phenomena and thoughts goes a long way, for it shows that if there were even a single fixed, persistent, inherently existing entity in the world of phenomena, consciousness would remain It is like "sticking" on this object, and it will continue indefinitely.Eventually, all consciousnesses in the world will find themselves almost "captured" by this object, from which they cannot escape.It is this subtle, impermanent presence that leads Buddhism to compare the phenomenal world to a dream or a vision, to a changing and ungraspable stream.Even things that seem solid to us, like a table, change from moment to moment.The stream of thought is likewise made up of countless tiny moments set in motion by each such tiny change in the external world.Only the synthesis of these moments can give people a rough reality (realite grossiere) reflection.

Jean-François - This view is contrary to a very important Platonic thought.In all the Greek philosophers, and especially in Plato, we find this idea—I would even say this obsession—that we cannot know things that move, things that change. .For them, Phenomene - as everyone knows - is a Greek word that means "manifested things," the world of appearances.Being in a state of perpetual activity, it cannot be the object of any fixed, definite, definite cognition.The whole of Western philosophy - not only Greek, but all the way down to Kant - endeavors to discover behind appearances a stable and enduring factor which can become the object of a definite cognition. came.This boilerplate of stability is provided by the mathematical boilerplate.The mathematical template is the first fully satisfactory template for conceptual thought at the starting point of Western thought.Thus, behind the phenomena, people look for the lasting principles that determine these phenomena.These principles are the laws... Therefore, in order to escape the chaotic mobility of the world of phenomena, people find behind this world this world of structures, which are causal relations, permanent laws.Epicurus, or more precisely his disciple, the Latin poet Lucretius, called these laws "treaties" (foeaera), by which the gods ensured the unity of the human spirit with reality.These treaties are the stabilizing factors behind the moving reality of phenomena.

Mathieu—attention!The existence of laws does not imply the existence of persistent entities behind the phenomena.Buddhism fully subscribes to the irresistible determination of the phenomenal world by the law of cause and effect.But these laws, and the phenomena which they determine, are not persistent, independent entities existing in themselves: nothing exists through and in itself, everything exists through the interdependence of causes and conditions. function and performance.The law of gravity does not exist in itself, that is, in the absence of an object.A rock is made up of atoms, which themselves are equal to energy.A rainbow is formed by the action of the sun's rays falling on rain clouds—it appears visible, yet untouchable.Once one of these factors is missing, the phenomenon dies.Therefore, "rainbow" does not have its own essence, nor can we talk about the dissolution and destruction of something that does not exist.This "something" has its illusory appearance only by a temporary collection of many factors, which are not themselves inherently existing entities.

Jean-Francois - Not all natural phenomena can be reduced to rainbow phenomena! Mathieu—and all phenomena are the result of a combination of many ephemeral factors (facteursephemeres).Persistent, independent phenomena do not exist anywhere.It is said, "No independent thing can appear, any more than a flower can appear in the sky." Returning to laws, there is nothing to prove that they exist as persistent principles, and that these persistent principles are at the same time various basis for the phenomenon.The understanding of them can only come from our spirit, and it is a metaphysical choice on the side of science to declare that people can use our ideas to discover the ultimate essence of a phenomenal world that exists independently of our ideas.On this point, Buddhism agrees with Poincaré.In general, Poincaré says that a spiritual reality independent of its conceived existence, whatever its nature, is never attainable to us.And we can say that without humans, this reality as perceived by humans would cease to exist.

① Born in 1854 and died in 1912.French mathematician.He conducted extensive research on various fields of mathematics and physics known at the time, and in his later years he focused on the study of philosophy of science.His major works on the philosophy of science include "Science and Hypothesis", "The Value of Science", "Science and Method", "Final Thoughts", etc. Jean-François - There are some laws of physics after all. Mathieu - This is not as obvious as it seems.We can actually think that the reality hidden in the phenomenal world can be expressed in mathematical terms that are not bound by subjectivity.But, as Alan Wallace summed it up: "Mathematical axioms have until very recent times been regarded as obvious facts that need not be proved. And in the last century some mathematicians have pointed out that, for example, those of Euclid Postulates, neither true nor false, they are nothing more than 'rules of the game'.... Now, everything is clear that the axioms of mathematics come directly or indirectly from our experience, and we cannot say that mathematics contains a complete All laws of reality independent of experience." According to this assertion, one cannot perceive stable entities behind phenomena, which is also consistent with an insight one finds in certain Hindu philosophies—that is, The notion of a "universal type"—as opposed to, say, the typical "tree" that exists in every tree, or perhaps the typical "being" that is the essence of all that exists.

Jean-François - that's exactly what Plato said about the Idea! Mathieu - like in this.Buddhism repudiates this concept by saying that if there is such a typical tree, it must be the same in every tree.Therefore, all trees should bud at the same time and in the same way.For a persistent substance cannot be the cause of something that changes and multiplies.Indeed, the simple act of making or multiplying destroys the persistence of the entity, since it is no longer the same before and after. Jean-Francois——We should neither confuse axioms and postulates, nor treat the knowledge in physics and biology as the same as the postulates of mathematics. The knowledge in physics and biology is based on observation, theory and A constant reciprocation in experimentation, while mathematics is essentially a transcendental science.But our intention is not to engage in a discussion of the philosophy of science.Continuing with the similarities between East and West, Hindu philosophy is perhaps closer to Plato's philosophy than Buddhism, because, for Plato, the "tree in itself" exists in the super-sensible world (le monde supra-sensible), and all existence The tree in the sensible world, that is, the world of phenomena, is, so to speak, a copy (copie) of the tree in itself, a "sensible" copy of the "rational" tree.Neither of them, therefore, reflects the perfection of the tree in itself.For example, the perfect painter who wants to draw a tree of ideas should follow the teachings of Plato's philosophy to have the idea absolute, which is the model of the tree in itself, in order to draw the tree of ideas instead of The tree of phenomena, for the latter is but one of the innumerable imperfect copies of the tree in itself. … Plato expresses his contempt for painting by saying that a painter who paints a bed or a table is making a copy of a copy.The actual table that one finds in any house is already a replica of the table in itself that exists in the supersensible world.Therefore, the remanufactured table according to the painter's painting is a lower level of reality.From this arises this entanglement, the opposition of the world of the senses, which is unrecognizable because of its constant motion, and the world of the supersensible, which concerns rational entities.Can we think that the philosophy of Hinduism is close to this view, and is Buddhism against this view?

Mathieu – It should be said that there is something in common between Plato's idea and the Hindu "universal substance" in the sense that both think about a fixed substance behind phenomena.Buddhism, on the other hand, engages in a complex discussion in order to refute the existence of all persistent entities.The Hindu thesis most rebuked by Buddhism is that there is an omnipotent creator known to Hindus as Ishvara.In the centuries before and after the advent of Christianity, there have been some debates with adherents of the main philosophical schools of Hinduism - and there are many of them.I am speaking of the thought that there is an entite creatrlce permanente, which is self-sufficient, has no prior cause, and which creates by an act of will.Buddhist dialectics refute this thinking bit by bit.Let us consider, for example, omnipotence (tout-puissance), since a creator must be omnipotent: if the creator does not "decide" to create, then he loses his omnipotence, since the act of creation is done outside his will. Conducted.And if he creates volitionally, he is not omnipotent, for he creates under the influence of his creative will.

Jean-François—this is as beautiful as those paradoxes of Zeno in Elea. ① Elia (Elaia) is the ancient city of Magna Graecia (now the southern part of the Italian peninsula), and its land is the city of Lucania in today's Italy.Zeno of Elea (Zenon dElee) was born between 490 and 485 BC and was a disciple of the famous philosopher Parmenides.He tried to prove the impossibility of motion with a series of paradoxes.His most famous paradoxes are "the arrow can never reach the target" and "the hare can never catch up with the tortoise".According to him, if a moving object wants to reach a point, it must first cover half of its distance from the point, and before that it must cover half of the distance, and then go on like this until infinity.Zeno of Elea is called to distinguish it from Zenon de Citium, the founder of the Stoics.

Mathieu - Can a Creator Be a Persistent Entity?No, because he is different before and after creation.He actually became "a man of creation."Also, if he created the entire universe, this must mean that all causes of the universe must exist in him.However, one of the foundations of the law of cause and effect—Karma—is that an event cannot happen as long as all the causes and conditions for its occurrence have not been brought together, and when they are brought together, it cannot happen. It can't happen.This means that the Creator will either never be able to create, or must keep creating!These reasonings and many others apply to all traditions that honor a Creator with enduring, omnipotent, inherently existent qualities.

Jean-François - I'm absolutely amazed.I seem to hear the words of an ancient skeptical dialectician, or an Epicurean, or a Stoic, who refute the idea of ​​a personal Creator God . Mathieu – This dialectic continues to animate philosophical debates in Asia today.One also distinguishes the opposite side of phenomena, the world of appearances, from their ultimate nature.From an absolute point of view, Buddhism says that a truly existing "entity" can neither be born nor disappear; What already exists cannot be made to exist, because at this point it no longer needs to be born. Jean-François—I think I heard Parmenides' rebuttal as Plato described it. Mathieu – Anyway, when we strip the causal process from the perspective of absolute truth, we can conclude that this process cannot connect together some real entities: or that the cause disappears before the effect, Thus in this case the cause - which no longer exists - has nothing to do with the effect; or the cause continues to exist after the effect, which in turn excludes all causality, since at the same time There can be no causality in simultaneite. Jean-François—ah!if…… Mathieu - ugh!No... two simultaneous, self-existing entities cannot have a causal relationship, or even any relationship at all. Jean-François – There are causal relationships that are in a continuum of time, but there are also causal relationships where cause and effect coexist. Mathieu—say? Jean-François - the fact that I breathe the oxygen that keeps me alive.The cause, which is the reality of the oxygen in the air, and I, the one who breathes it, are simultaneous. Mathieu - No, because the oxygen you speak of, and your body, is changing every moment, so you can't be talking about a persistent entity that exists inherently, simultaneously, and interacts"Oxygen ” and another persistent entity “body”!If both the seed and the fruit are substances possessing inherent existence, there can be no causal relationship between these two substances, whether they are simultaneous or in temporal succession.For the cause, the seed, must be destroyed for the effect, the fruit, to arise, and a thing that is no longer can make anything. Jean-François – but this, correctly, is this type of causality where cause precedes effect.Because there is continuity of time, but at the same time, we can say that there is simultaneity between the light of the sun and the leaf absorbing the solar energy.I believe there are two causal relationships.In continuity there is causality. Mathieu - It is not the sun of the present moment that makes the leaves that people see. Jean-François - I know not, but the sunlight, the moment it reaches this plant [creates the leaf], even though it travels for a while to travel through space... I would say, just In the traditional sense, there are not only simultaneous causal relationships, but also consecutive causal relationships.All continuity is not causation, and all causality is not continuity.This is the old debate between Hume and Kant. Mathieu – The sun whose heat enables the plants to germinate is not the sun that warms the plants as they germinate.The reason no longer exists.If I were to drop the glass in front of me, cause and effect could not be at the same time—the glass was not lying on the ground at the moment I pushed it. Jean-François - but when I just gave you the example of oxygen... Mathieu – Oxygen is not a permanent entity, it is always in flux.Cause and effect are not simultaneous. Jean-François - no... I agree. Mathieu – Oxygen is still a superficial phenomenon, but it is not the same oxygen that regenerates the blood. Jean-François - The beams supporting the roof are what keep the roof from collapsing.Here cause and effect are simultaneous. Mathieu - What I want to say in the end is this: on the opposite side, that is, on the side of normal truth as we all perceive it, causality is unavoidable.If, however, we place ourselves on the side of absolute logic, the law of causality cannot operate with respect to some entities which have a permanent, solid existence.Even a single fixed, independent, inherently existing entity does not exist anywhere in the phenomenal world. Jean-François – You talk about an eventual causality, however, there is also some structural causality.For example, a body used as a whole...a ship floating on water.Water and boats coexist.The density of water is what makes a boat float.Water and boats coexist. Mathieu – To be precise, there are no causal relations between entities, only what you call structural relations, existing between various temporal phenomena, which we call interdependent relations: "The existence of this thing is Because there is something, and this thing happens on the basis of that thing." No event exists by itself in spite of other phenomena.Each element in the causal chain itself is a collection of many momentary elements in eternal change, so there is no continuity in time consisting of many different independent elements.This argument reveals the unreality of autonomous, persistent phenomena, whether this is a Creator God, or an atom that exists by itself without cause or condition, independent of other phenomena. Jean-François - Here again is a method of questioning that we encounter throughout the history of Western philosophy.Sometimes phenomena exist and are reality, and this is what is called the empiricist or realist school.Sometimes appearance is a complete illusion, which is called absolute idealism, such as the philosophy of Berkeley in the eighteenth century.Sometimes phenomena are a chaotic mass of interconnected things, but causality is utterly illusory in this multitude. This is Hume's philosophy.Sometimes the phenomenon itself is not a reality, it is a synthesis, which is the reality behind the phenomenon and the construction of the human spirit that we do not know - this is the original material and human beings provided by the reality itself. The intermediate result of both—the creative powers of the mind—a meeting.In other words, it is half provided by the outside world and half constructed by the human spirit, both real at the same time.This is a rough summary of Kant's theory in .So, all cases of figure are considered in Western philosophy.As far as my opinion goes, I don't believe this is a real problem.If there are no phenomena in Buddhism, then what are there? ① Born in 1685 and died in 1753, a British theologian and philosopher.After joining the Church, taught Greek, Hebrew and Theology in Dublin.Author of "Visual Theory Debate", "Principles of Human Cognition" and so on.Denying all reality external to thought, its central theme "to be is to be perceived or perceived" is traditionally regarded as the basis of a philosophy of subjective idealism (or empiricism and nominalism idealism). Mathieu - Buddhism takes a middle way.It does not deny the reality of phenomena in the relative world known to the senses, but the fact that there are some persistent entities behind them.It is because of this attitude that people say that it is a "middle way" that falls neither into nihilism nor into "eternalism."For nihilism, there is nothing outside our perception, everything is nothing; and "eternalism" may be what you call realism, for realism, there is a unique, independent of everything. Perceived reality, which may be composed of self-existing entities.The kind of solid entities that Buddhism disproves, say, indivisible particles of matter, indivisible moments of consciousness.Again we come across the expression of some modern physicists who have abandoned the idea of ​​understanding particles as tiny cannonballs or infinitely small masses.What people call mass or matter is, to be precise, a condensation of energy.Neutrinos, for example, are massless, unloaded "particles" that are neither electric nor magnetic, and right now billions of them are passing through our bodies from side to side and the earth, without slowing their running.Through an intellectual process that does not claim to be a scientific theory, but intellectually examines the very possibility of the existence of atoms - etymologically "indivisible particles" - Buddhism gives us a solid understanding of the world. the concept of non-reality. Jean-François – According to Buddhism, are there two levels of reality: the level of phenomena and the underlying real matrix, even if the matrix is ​​not made up of atoms of matter and is ultimately energy? Mathieu - When Buddhism talks about the "emptiness" of phenomena, it says that phenomena "appear," but they do not reflect the existence of fixed entities in the slightest.Modern physics tells us, for example, that an electron can be regarded both as a particle and as a wave (onde), two concepts which, according to common sense, are completely incompatible.Some interference phenomena caused by electrons can only be explained by assuming that an electron passes through two different holes at the same instant.According to Buddhism, atoms cannot be understood as fixed entities existing in a single definite form; how, then, can the world of gross representations, which are supposed to consist of these particles, have a fixed reality?All of this helps to destroy our notion of the solidity of appearances.It is in this sense that Buddhism affirms that the ultimate nature of phenomena is emptiness, and that emptiness itself carries an infinite expressive potential. Jean-François - These portentous assumptions about the nature and infirmity of matter are made by… Mathieu-...expressed by the Buddha, later codified and expounded in many treatises by two of the greatest Buddhist philosophers, Nagarjuna (c. 2nd century AD) and Moonshine (8th century).The analysis of atoms is as follows: Let us observe a crude phenomenon, say a table.If we break down its components, it is no longer a table, but legs, a board, etc.Then, if we reduce them to sawdust, these components also lose their identity.If we now examine a grain of sawdust, one will find some neutrons, and then some atoms - the idea of ​​which was already proposed in the East in the time of Democritus. Jean-François – In fact, the concept of the atom appears in the philosophy of Democritus and Epicurus.But it is no more scientifically justified in them than in other theories of ancient physics.Just some spiritual arguments. Mathieu – Oddly enough, the Greek word "atome" means "insecable". Jean-François - Exactly.That is, the final nucleus that can no longer be divided into two halves. Mathieu - Buddhism uses the same word.We're talking about "partless," indivisible particles, which are supposed to be the ultimate constituents of matter.We now come to observe one such indivisible particle understood as an autonomous entity.How does it combine with other particles to make matter?If the particles touch each other, say, the west of one particle touches the east of another particle.And if they have direction, they can be divided again, thus losing their "indivisible" character.If it has neither edge nor direction, they are analogous to a point in the mathematical sense—no dimension, no thickness, no substance.If people try to gather two dimensionless particles together, either they do not touch each other, and therefore cannot come together; or they touch each other, and in this way, they mix with each other.In this way, even if there is a mountain of indivisible particles, they will be mixed into a single such particle!It follows, therefore, that there cannot be indivisible, discontinuous particles, inherently endowed with inherent existence, and thus constitutive of matter.Also, if an atom has a mass, a dimension, a charge, etc., is it equal to all its properties?Does it exist outside of its properties?An atom is neither equal to its mass nor its dimension, but it is not something other than its mass and dimension.An atom has a bunch of properties, but it is not any of those properties.Therefore, the atom is only a concept, a label that does not apply to an entity that exists in an independent and absolute way, it has only a conventional and relative existence. Jean-François - In the theory of Democritus and Epicurus, there is the idea that the ultimate constituents of matter - such as living things - are atoms, The ways in which things are shaped are organized into each other to form the various phenomena that we see under various guises.Appearances are just appearances arising from various combinations of atoms.And in order to explain how atoms combine with each other and why some atoms combine with others, the ancients invented the theory of "hook-shaped" atoms. Of course, this is entirely imaginary: some atoms have hooks, and these hooks guide They are connected to other atoms, while other atoms have no hooks.In conclusion, it is indeed necessary to explain why atoms combine with each other in one way or another to produce certain phenomena. Mathieu—and the Buddhists would say: "If there is a hook, there are also parts: the end and the base of the hook; your indivisibility can then be divided." Jean-François - he could say that.In any case, at this stage, both in the West and in the East, we are confronted with some eminent theories, however metaphysique, not physique. Mathieu – of course, but while proving that there cannot be indivisible particles, Buddhism does not attempt to analyze and explain physical phenomena in the sense of science understood today: it seeks to shatter rational notions of the solidity of the phenomenal world.For it is this concept that makes us attached to 'I' and phenomena, it is this concept that is the cause of the duality between self and other, existence and non-existence, attachment and repulsion, etc., and the cause of all our suffering.In sum, here Buddhism is intellectually in line with some of the views of contemporary physics, so its contribution should also be included in the history of thought.I would like to use the example of one of the greatest physicists of our time, the Yale professor Henry Margeneau, who wrote: "At the end of the nineteenth century it was maintained that all interactions required physical objects. In our In this day and age, people generally don't think that's true anymore. People think it's more likely an interaction of energy fields or some other largely immaterial force." Heisenberg said: "Atoms are not things. As for Bertrand Russell: "The idea that there is a globule, a small solid mass called an electron, is an illegal trespass of common sense, born of the idea of ​​touch." : "Matter is an idiom, suitable for describing unexpected occurrences, where there is in fact no matter, there is nothing there." On the other hand, Sir James Gines① in his "The universe began to look more like a gigantic mind than a gigantic machine." ① Born in 1877 and died in 1946, British astronomer, mathematician, and physicist. Jean-François - these intuitive examples - although in ancient philosophy, whether in Democritus, Epicurus and Lucretius in the West, or in the older Buddhism in the East , are very detailed, very deep; these amazing predictions of modern science, although sometimes produced by pure thinking, without any possibility of experimental proof, are very moving.One may find some equally astonishing advances in Chinese philosophy.In the West alone, these intuitions gave rise to the experimental revolution which gave birth to modern science.Why didn't Buddhism undergo such an evolution? Mathieu - The experimental evidence of Buddhism certainly exists, but the goals of Buddhism should not be ignored.This goal is the science of the heart, a science developed over two thousand years of contemplative life and the study of the spirit.In Tibet especially, this inner science has been the main concern of a sizable portion of the population since the eighth century.The purpose has never been to transform the external world by physically acting upon it, but to transform the external world by making better human beings, by enabling human beings to develop an inner awareness.There are many layers to this understanding: metaphysics speaks of ultimate truth, and its application to the relative world of phenomena is as precise and rigorous as the best science, and it helps to make sense of the intricacies of suffering. .Physical or mental suffering is negative action.Results of words and thoughts such as murder, theft, deceit, rumors, etc.Negative thoughts arise from the act of cherishing the self and wanting to protect it, an attitude that itself arises from the notion of a persistent and unique "I."The belief in the self, which is regarded as a separate entity, is only a special appearance of the grip of phenomenal solidity on man.By realizing that our attachment to the self has no real object, and by releasing our attachment to the solidity of phenomena, we end the vicious circle of pain.Therefore, the rational negation of the concept of independent particles can completely make us weaken our nostalgia for the reality of phenomena and the reality of our human body, so that we can get rid of all kinds of emotions that disturb the mind.Such an analysis leads to an inner realization which, though inner, is not without enormous influence on our relation to the external world and our influence upon it. Jean-François - Yes, but how is this possible, since Buddhist theory is a theory of the unreality of the external world, in every respect of its character... Mathieu—… the superficial features are empty. Jean-François - In other words, the theory of atoms as elements that help to constitute reality but have no ultimate reality is not welcomed by any experimental proof.So, we can't be sure it's accurate.Thus, one builds a spiritual science on top of an unproven theory of matter. Mathieu – One should not leave the question of dismantling our notions of a firm and lasting reality by proving them illogical and unfounded, instead of talking about an experimentally proven science truth.The verification here is at the level of transformation of existence.This analysis does not attempt to be a physical overview, its purpose is not to clarify the structure of molecules, the motion of celestial bodies, etc., but to act very effectively like an antidote on the pain of. Jean-François—Yes, but the end is not achieved by scientific certainty about what is or is not what is really going on in the external world, but by an assumption, a comfortable illusion.人们为自己造出这种外部世界的幻象，但它从来也没有被佛教徒通过实验加以证实。 马蒂厄——这并不要紧，因为我们谈的是精神和对它的误解。就实验方面而言，这种幻象被证实了，然而是在它所属的领域里！从实验上说，阿司匹灵消除了头痛，而这样一种内部劳动则消除仇恨、欲望、嫉妒、骄傲和所有干扰精神的东西——这就是一种实验结果，慎重地说，我觉得这种实验结果至少是与阿司匹灵同样有效的！ 让-弗朗索瓦——但对于我，意思是说我给自己制造了某种关于现实的思想，因为这种思想适合于我建立一种我认可的道德哲学。 马蒂厄——这并不仅仅是一种舒适的对于现实的想法。通过以一种理智的、合逻辑的、拓扑学的、几乎是数学的分析，否定不可分的微粒的概念，人们摧毁直到这时候一直具有的对于现象的牢固性的精神图像。人们所希望的，乃是得到一种有效的反毒剂，以对付无知的原因和它的种种痛苦表现。如果这个目的达到了，精神生活的目的也就达到了。当人们射一支箭时，不应该忘记箭靶是哪一个。人们可以将能够去到月球，或者控制了物质以至可以使星球跳动视为一个成功，但这是一个非常可疑的成功！靠着许多个世纪的智能的与物质的努力，靠着许多代人贡献出生命，科学达到了它给自己订立的某些目标。佛教有它自己的一些优先考虑，它在许多世代中，为这些优先考虑作出了同样重大的努力。 让-弗朗索瓦——这是一种完全值得考虑的措施。但是这里问题仍然是，不是建立一种以客观认识为出发点，而是以一种有益的假设为出发点的精神幸福的措施。 马蒂厄——我们怎么理解客观认识？根据量子物理学，微粒的本质是不可知的，不依赖于我们的度量系统。整个宇宙也是如此：一个不依赖于任何人类观念的宇宙是不能为人类精神所认识的。是什么眷恋着现象的实在性？是精神。而这里，我们在对什么起作用？对精神！如果人们解除精神对于世界的牢固性所具有的感受，这种导致众多无休止痛苦的感受，确实需要一种客观认识，但不是对自然物理的客观认识，而是对痛苦的机能和对这种精神科学的结果的实验证明的客观认识。 让-弗朗索瓦——对于实验证明的这种设想不能令我完全满意。 马蒂厄——你不认为实验证明只能针对一些物理现象吗？刚才关于心理学你说过，在它的众多分支中，只有神经生理学配得上科学这个名字。而神经生理学乃是精神科学的被物化了的表象。根据这个观点，只有量的和物理的科学才配得上精确科学的名字。一种科学要想精确，必须从某些假设出发，在经验的领域里严格地进行，以最终通过这些经验的结果，来宣告其假设有效或是无效。这些标准没有任何理由要被限制在所谓的客观物理的领域里。再说，我不明白为什么必须将精神的科学与个人的改善分离开，正如你前面说的，因为对于宁静的获得乃是这些科学的实验证明之一，就如同物体的坠落乃是重力原理的实验证明一样。 除了精神本身，没有任何东西能够帮助人认识精神的最终本质。如果内省在西方心理学的环境背景下作为科学的方法失败了，并且被从西方心理学中抛开，这仅仅是因为运用它的那些人没有掌握适当的工具以指导他们的经验。他们没有受过丝毫的训练，也没有丝毫静观领域的知识，并且对于有助于人使精神平静以最终认识精神的深层本质的技艺一无所知。这就像一个人，使用不稳定的电度表，得出结论说，不可能测量出电流的压力。然而，静观技艺的学习要求有恒心。我们不能因为这些技艺与西方世界的主导忧虑——这些忧虑，应该说是属于物质范畴而不是精神范畴——距离遥远，并且不感到有亲自进行其经验的倾向，就一挥手赶开它们。我们可以理解怀疑论，但不能理解对于一种不同的接近（approche）的有效性缺乏证明其价值的兴趣与欲望。这个问题也存在于另一个意义上。我认识一些西藏人，他们拒绝相信有些人曾经到过月球！