On A Logically Consistent Cosmological Model Based on Buddhist Philosophy-Juniper Publishers
Juniper Publishers-Social Sciences
Abstract
The Big Bang theory is the currently most prevailing
cosmological model for the observable universe, but it still exists many
un-answered questions such as the existence of the Singularity and the
reason for a sudden explosion. Many people are still working on the
improvement of the Big-Bang model or the construction of other totally
new cosmological models. In this paper, a novel cosmological model based
on Buddhist philosophy is proposed and from this author’s judgement, it
seems conceptually clear and logically consistent and it can explain
many phenomena which belongs to the frontier problems of modern
sciences.
Keywords: Universe; Cosmology; The Big-Bang Cosmological Model (BBCM); The Buddhist Cosmological Model (BCM)
Introduction
Where did we come from? Where should we go after
dying? Who am I? When did the universe begin? How big is it? Will it
end? Does the universe operate according to some laws or randomly? These
and many other similar questions have been explored since very ancient
times by many people including scientists, philosophers, religionists,
and many theories have been proposed [1]. Today, the consensus among
scientists, astronomers and cosmologists is the Big Bang Theory also
known as the Big-Bang Cosmological Model (BBCM). The basics of the Big
Bang theory are simple. In short, the Big Bang hypothesis states that
all the current and past matter in the Universe came into existence at
the same time, roughly 15 billion years ago. At this time, all matter
was compacted into a very small ball with infinite density and intense
heat called a Singularity. Suddenly, the Singularity began expanding,
and the universe as we know it began.
This model has been confronted to a variety of
observations that allow one to reconstruct its expansion history, its
thermal history and the structuration of matter. Hence, what we refer to
as the big-bang cosmological model (BBCM) today is radically different
from what one may have had in mind a century ago. And I believe that a
hundred years later, this big-bang model might also be radically
different from what it is now. Burago pointed out that at least two
obvious questions exist in the Big-Bang model [2].
The first question remained as to how the matter and
energy were in this superdense elementary particle? It is considered
incorrect to ask, what was around this particle before the explosion and
whether the universe does expand? Because space and time in the
universe also arose as a result of the Big Bang. It is assumed that
protons, neutrons, positrons, electrons and other long-lived elementary
particles formed 15 billion years ago and have reached our days
unchanged. The second question arose from the insolvency of ideas about
the explosion of a kind of “cosmic egg”, which was the explosion of the
largest nuclear bomb. This point of view boils down to the assertion
that “space” exploded, and not a material object. At the same time, the
authors of this idea do not bother explaining what they think is a
“space” and what can explode in an empty space? Therefore, many people
are still working on the improvement of the Big-Bang model or the
construction of other totally new cosmological models.
All the modern sciences including the BBCM are based
on the materialism which holds that matter is the fundamental substance
in nature, and that all things, including mental aspects and
consciousness, are by-products or epiphenomena of material processes
(the biochemistry of the human brain and nervous system, for example)
without which they cannot exist. According to this doctrine the material
creates and determines consciousness, not vice versa. Now this
philosophy cannot explain many life phenomena, e.g. [3]. Sheldrake [4]
has discussed in quite detail about the ten dogmas of modern science
based on materialism and some people even claim that it is the time now
to end the materialism, e.g. [5]. The most difficult question for the
materialism believers is how the first matter comes from and what
is the source of forces which cause every object to move in the
universe.
In this paper a novel cosmological model based on Buddhist
philosophy is proposed and therefore, we call this model as
the Buddhist Cosmological Model (BCM). From this author’s
judgement, it seems conceptually clear and logically consistent
and it can explain many phenomena which belongs to the frontier
problems of modern sciences. It is the author’s wish that critical
comments can be received by publishing this paper.
The Logically Consistent Cosmological Model
It must be emphasized that all the theories we are talking
about even including the concepts of space and time are created
by our human beings and they are only of meaning to our human
beings and not animals. I am sure quite a lot of types of animals
also have verbal languages which we do not understand. Now we
are accustomed to describing any phenomenon in the space-time
framework. In this paper, I do not provide any new definitions
for space and time. A quote of Kant is: “Space and time are the
framework within which the mind is constrained to construct its
experience of reality” [6].
In the BBCM, it is very clear that the universe is finite in time
but unclear whether it is finite or infinite in space. In the present
BCM, it is specifically defined that the universe is of infinite nature
in both space and time. The world is defined of finite nature in
both space and time and their relationship is expressed by the
following equation:
Each world is cyclically operated according to the process
of formation, the steady state, deterioration and explosion to
emptiness. In BCM, the Big Bang is the origin of the world but not
the universe. Using this definition, the awkward question of the
origin of the universe can be avoided.
Different from materialism which assumed matter is the
fundamental substance in nature, the Buddhism assumed that the
energy is the fundamental essence of the universe. The universe
consists of two types of energy, explicit energy and dark energy.
Dark energy is defined as the essence of a life corresponding to the
alaya consciousness in Buddhist theory [7,8], it has the capability
to accumulate the explicit energy into matter and decompose the
matter into explicit energy. Explicit energy is the lifeless energy
which can be accumulated by the alaya consciousness to be
explicit matter or dark matter and then to bodies or objects. The
level can be sensed by our human beings is defined as the explicit
matter and the rest is defined as the dark matter.
Both Explicit Energy and Dark Energy in the Universe Always Exists and Satisfies the Conservation Law, but not the Matter
This is the fundamental assumption made in BCM. Through
this assumption, the awkward question of the origin of life in the
universe can also be avoided. All matter is accumulated by the
dark energy (the alaya consciousness). This answers how the
first matter comes from and the source of all types of forces in
the universe which cause all the movements and changes of the
universe. However, it must be emphasized here that what we have
observed by our eyes are only small part in the world we are living
and not the whole universe. It is the over-claim that this is the
whole universe, and this is similar as a frog sitting at the bottom
of a well.
There are three types of life in the universe, the alaya
consciousness only, the alaya consciousness with an insensible
body (also dark matter to our human being) and the alaya
consciousness with a sensible body (being animals and human
beings) and these three types of lives can also be divided into six
categories according to their happiness, Heaven, Asura, Human
being, Animal, Ghost, Hell. Only human beings and animals are
with a sensible body by our human beings. Non-existence of other
types of lives is also a belief or an over-claim rather than a scientific
proof. Lives with only the alaya consciousness only exists in the
Heaven, they are the highest level of life in the universe while the
lives in the Hell is the lowest level in the universe. So according to
this BCM, human beings are not the most intelligent creatures in
the universe but in the middle level. All the matter used by other
four types of lives and together with their bodies belong to dark
matter.
Everything in the Universe Including all the Worlds and Each Individual Life is Operated According to the Causal-Effect Law
This can be regarded as the second assumption of this BCM.
For any lifeless object in the world we are living, no matter
whether we can see (explicit matter) or not (dark matter), it will
experience the cycle of formation, the steady state, deterioration
and destroy and for each individual life, no matter whether we
can see (human beings and animals) or not (other four types of
lives), she/he will be reincarnated within the six types of lives in
the universe. Here it must be pointed out that according to the
causal-effect law, reincarnation of my live is not confined to this
world I am living, but in the whole universe. Even for the alaya
consciousness only life in the Heaven, she/he will also have a life
span and can be reincarnated into other five types with a body in
the universe, not necessarily in the same world as he/she lived in
a previous life. Reincarnation of all lives is a law of nature [9]. So,
in this BCM, parents provide only the bodies to their children and
not the life. We are very soon reached a stage that we can clone
our bodies, but the essence of life does not change, and any lives
produced this way should have the same rights as us.
Human’s consciousness includes 8 types, they are
consciousness at eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body and mind, the
manas consciousness, and finally the alaya consciousness. When one is dying, the consciousness at eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body
and mind will be lost. The function of the seventh consciousness
whose formal name is called the manas consciousness, is the
bridge between the former six consciousness with the eigth
whose formal name is called the alaya consciousness. Only the
alaya consciousness will continue to exist and it is the source of
life forces and it stores all the karmas in the previous life history.
The dying process is a process of the separation of the alaya
consciousness with the body. For the detailed theory of Buddhism,
one can refer to references [7,8].
Explanation Power of BCM
Through my education and scientific training, I cannot see
any logical problem with BCM, it gives a clear definition to all the
concepts used and state clearly only two fundamental assumptions
are needed. One is the existence of energy, different from the
materialist world view, there are basically two types of energy,
one is the explicit energy which is the essence of all matter, no
matter explicit matter which we can see or feel or the dark matter
which we cannot see or feel, and the other is dark energy which
is the essence of life. This is called the alaya consciousness in the
Buddhist philosophy. The other assumption is that everything
in the universe follows the causal-effect law. How to reveal this
law for each object is the mission of our scientific researches.
With this model, it avoids many awkward questions related to
the origin of universe and life in the universe and it answers the
important questions of the origin of matter and the source of
forces behind. It has automatically revealed the most difficult part
of modern physics about dark matter and dark energy. It can easily
explain many other phenomena in the world we have observed.
To my own knowledge, this model seems to be able to explain all
the anomalous phenomena mentioned in Ref. [3]. In this section,
further explanation powers to some important problems are
shown. Of course, it is impossible for one paper to cover every
aspect and these can just be regarded as a demonstration.
Origin of the Earth and Life on the Earth
In this BCM, it is natural that any star like the earth was
created by many lives in the universe and when the condition
suits, the relevant alaya consciousness will enter a body and that
is the origin of life on the earth and any stars.
Existence of the Extraterrestrial Life
It is also natural that the extraterrestrial life exists everywhere
in the universe, however, up to now, we have not found the macro
creatures which we can see in our neibouring stars yet. But it
cannot refuse the possibility that other types of lives exist which
we cannot see now since a very high percent of dark matter we
do not know. In this BCM, the dark matter is those lives and their
material stuff for living. As a matter of the fact, even on the earth,
other four types of lives may also exist although we could not see
them by conventional means but there are some other means
which can communicate with them. One approach is through a
mediumship described in Chapter 10 of Ref. [3]. But this approach
may only communicate with lives in the Ghost, whether a medium
is able to communicate with lives in the Heaven and Hell is a
problem for further study.
Criterion of a Perfect Human Life
For believers in materialism, life only has one term. It is hard
to define a perfect state. Now, most of the people assess some’s
success by how much money he owned. In order to earn more
money, he works hard and fights with others due to the resource
limit. One day when he is dying, he cannot take any money away.
He should not know anything whether his money has given to
his children or others. Therefore, it is hard to see the difference
between a hard-working person and a lazy person. The fighting
for limited resources between human beings cause a lot of social
problems. In BCM, it is clear to make the next life in a higher level is
much more important than earning money in this life. The highest
life is the Budda which every person can be if he always does good
things [7,8]. This could make the society more harmony than the
current materialism belief.
How to Know the Essence of Universe
In BCM, there are two methods for human beings knowing
the operational laws of the world, one is the current knowledge
learning method. This is based on the principle of a blind man
feeling an elephant. We are approaching the truth, but it hardly
knows the truth. The second method is to open your “eyes” to see
the elephant. However, how to open this “eye” which can see the
truth needs to be practiced. In Buddhist religion, there are many
methods to develop this capability for different individuals. In
general, meditation is one of the main methods to be used [10].
Artificial Intelligence and Human Consciousness
Nowadays, artificial intelligence progresses very fast and it
has defeated human beings in the game of Go [11]. Some people
started to worry that one day artificial intelligence will be more
powerful than human beings. According to BCM, human beings
can only make bodies but not the alaya consciousness. The unique
property of the alaya consciousness is its ability of “self-knowing
oneself”, that is, in the moment of perceiving the outside world,
there is a kind of vivid and clear, self-awareness. This kind of
intrinsic character of the present, clear and self-awareness, in the
Dharma, is called the “self-certification of the alaya consciousness”
or the meaning of “self-knowing oneself”. Such a kind of conscious
and conscious experience is the fundamental difference between
our human beings and robots.
Theory of everything
Whether the world works regularly or not, and whether the
nature of the world is knowable or unknowable, Einstein and Bohr
have debated these two questions for more than 40 years, no one
was persuaded by the other until their death. After that, physicists
divided into two camps to continue the debate. The detailed story
can be found in many articles and books, e.g. [12,13]. Einstein
believes that the world works regularly, and the operational law can be revealed by our scientific research. So, he wished to
establish a theory of everything (TOE) but he failed. Many others
are continuing this direction.
In a previous paper by this author, a simple idea on the
unification of Einstein-Bohr Controversy was presented [14]. My
main point is that the controversy was caused by Bohr’s overclaim
and there is no contradiction between them. Philosophically,
we should believe that (1) the universe including macro and
micro worlds always works regularly or with rules, and (2)
these rules can always be revealed by us humans. Practically,
due to the complexity of the actual problem and the time limit
of our human life, we may not be able to reveal the real rules of
the system operation in our lifetime, especially it is hard for us
to identify all the influencing factors. If all the influencing factors
have not been identified for a system, then the transfer function
is an approximate format. We can define those ignored factors as
hidden variables. Because of the existence of hidden variables and
the approximate nature of the transfer function, there is no one to
one correspondence between input vector and output value, and
the system is uncertain.
In this case, we should apply a theory who is able to handle
uncertainty such as probability and statistics. In conclusion, for
systems with no hidden variables, the transfer function can be
given precisely using deterministic mathematics. For systems
with hidden variables, the mathematics with uncertainty, such as
the theory of probability and statistics, should be applied. There
is no inconsistency to be debated. The deepening research can be
carried out in two directions. One is to study the mechanism more
precisely and reduce or eliminate hidden variables. The second is
to study its application. On the premise of only considering the
currently accepted explicit influencing factors, probability and
statistics theory is applied to improve the reliability of prediction
as much as possible under the condition of existing information or
collecting more information only on these factors.
Philosophically speaking, there is no need to make the claims
that (1) there is no rule in the micro world operation and (2) there
exists irreducible uncertainty or objective uncertainty. From this
author’s knowledge, Shen Zhiyuan [15] has made some success to
progress the TOE. In terms of the theory for handling uncertainty,
the author recommends the quantum decision theory (QDT)
developed by Yukalov & Sornette [16,17] which can consider
the preferences of the individuals/players. The decision makers’
brain is assumed of a dual nature, with brain processes divided to
conscious and subconscious constituent parts and the computed
quantum strategic probabilities consisted of two parts, the first
one being rationality related and the other one capturing biases,
emotions and feelings.
Summary and Conclusion
In this paper, a novel cosmological model based on Buddhist
philosophy is proposed and from this author’s judgement, it
seems conceptually clear and logically consistent. It can overcome
many deficiencies of the current Big-Bang cosmological model and
explain many phenomena which belongs to the frontier problems
of modern sciences. One important feature is that if this BCM is
proved to be valid, it may have great impact on human behavior
since nowadays most of the people believe in the materialism
which is the cause of many human conflicts for the limited
resources.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the State Key Program of National
Natural Science of China “Structural Reliability Analysis on the
Spherical Hull of Deepsea Manned Submersibles” (Grant No.
51439004), the General Program of National Natural Science of
China “A study on the water absorption property of the buoyancy
material for the full ocean depth manned submersible” (Grant
No. 51879157), the “Construction of a Leading Innovation Team”
project by the Hangzhou Municipal government, the Startup
funding of New-joined PI of Westlake University with grant
number (041030150118).
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