Minor Figures: Jī

Jī 基 (632–682) [aka Kuījī 窺基] plays a relatively minor role in the history of the Heart Sutra. He composed a commentary: Bānrěbōluómìduō xīn jīng yōu zàn «般若波羅蜜多心經幽贊». Although it is undated, and assuming the attribution is accurate, it had to be composed before his death on 27 December 682. It may be the earliest commentary on the Heart Sutra.

He is associated with a historically important, though relatively short-lived Chinese Yogācāra movement, usually referred to as Fǎxiàng-zōng 法相宗 "Dharma Characteristics School" (though as we will see, this is not what they called themselves). As the "patriarch" of this movement, Kuījī wrote a number of influential commentaries.

In modern Buddhist literature, it is de rigueur to refer to everyone associated with Xuanzang 玄奘 as his "disciple". However, this inflationary approach is frequently inaccurate. For example, the translator Woncheuk was never Xuanzang's student, let alone his "disciple". He was a capable scholar in his own right before he met Xuanzang. However, Jī does seem to have been Xuanzang's student.

The biography in the Sòng Gāosēng Zhuàn 宋高僧傳 "Song Dynasty Biographies of Eminent Monks" (T 2061) gives us a basic outline of his life. A translation of Jī's biography follows this essay. Weinstein (1959: 122) refers to this as "by far the longest biography" suggesting that all of the modern biographies to that point had relied almost exclusively, and naively, on the Sòng Gāosēng Zhuàn. Weinstein (1959: 122) comments:

Unfortunately, however, the [Sòng Gāosēng Zhuàn] biography, despite its length and seeming detail, is filled with the wildest statements and reveals so many glaring internal contradictions that any fact contained therein, lacking support from other sources must be considered suspect.

Weinstein sought to glean biographical detail from a much wider range of sources, including mentions in the biographies of other people. In the process, he notes several aspects of the account in the Sòng Gāosēng Zhuàn are unreliable, especially Xuanzang's supposed early meeting with Jī. As such, Weinstein (1959) is a valuable secondary source, while the Sòng Gāosēng Zhuàn should be used with care, especially if it is the sole source of any given fact.

A curious feature of biographies of Jī is that they locate major events in time by giving his age rather than the date which introduces a margin of error. In Tang China, age was typically counted using the East Asian system, where a person was considered one year old at birth, and age increased by one with each Lunar New Year, not on their actual birthday. Which is another potential source of error.

The Name Kuījī

Scholars routinely refer to Kuījī, probably because the Sòng Gāosēng Zhuàn does. However, at least two scholars have problematised this name. Weinstein (1959: 129) had already noted that while Kuījī is the most common form of his name, Kuījī refers to himself in the third person as “Jī 基”. Weinstein argues that the name Kuījī conflates Jī with another "almost totally unknown monk" called Kuī. He Huanhuan (2017: 63) similarly stated that the monk’s name was simply Jī 基 and that Kuī 窺 may be a scribal error or the name of another monk.

Jorgensen (2002) refers to him as “Dasheng Ji” [i.e. 大乘基 “Mahāyāna Ji”] throughout. Weinstein (1958: 131 n. 44) notes that the affectation of adding dàshèng 大乘 "Mahāyāna" to names was common amongst Xuanzang's followers. Jī is also commonly referred to by his posthumous title, Ci’en dàshī 慈恩大師 “Master of Ci’en”, after Dàcí’ēn Sì 大慈恩寺 "Great Temple of Compassion" where he lived. For example, Weinstein refers to him as Tz’ǔ-ên (i.e. Ci’en 慈恩) throughout.

I'm persuaded by the arguments of Weinstein (1959) and He (2017) and, henceforth, I will refer to this person as Jī 基.

Biography

Jī's clan (the Yùchí 尉遲) was from Central Asia but, during the Later Wei Dynasty, they were incorporated into China and became thoroughly Sinified. The Lǐ 李 clan, who ruled the Tang, also had Central Asian ancestry and the Yùchí were their staunch allies. Jī was raised in Chang'an, the primary imperial capital of the Tang.

Biographers agree that Jī was a precocious child with an excellent memory. After being orphaned at age 9 (ca. 640) he was raised by his uncle, Yùchí Jìngdé 尉遲敬德, who played a significant role in the unification of China under the Tang Dynasty. Yùchí Jìngdé is often celebrated in Chinese history and folklore for his bravery and martial skills. Aged 17, he joined the Buddhist monastic sangha. Possibly, with the help of Xuanzang, but Weinstein calls this into question.

Aged 23 (ca 644 CE), Jī was appointed to Dàcí’ēn Sì 大慈恩寺. Note that such appointments were notionally made by the emperor (or more realistically, by the imperial administration in the emperor's name) and monks had no choice but to obey.

Jī learned Sanskrit from Xuanzang. Aged 25 (ca 656 CE, around the time that the Heart Sutra was being composed) he joined Xuanzang's cadre of translation assistants and participated in the translations of numerous texts. Note that Xuanzang was a devout follower of Yogācāra. This included worship of Maitreya, who reputedly dictated certain Yogācāra texts to their ostensible human authors. Xuanzang died in early 664 CE, meaning that Jī was his translation assistant for about 8 years.

Chinese Yogācāra was already quite contested. Schools of thought had crystallised around competing interpretations of Daśabhūmika-sūtra-śāstra (attributed to Vasubandhu) by Bodhiruchi and Ratnamati. A third school formed around new ideas introduced by Paramārtha in the mid-6th century. It is said that the disputes were part of what motivated Xuanzang to travel to India seeking copies of the Yogācārabhūmi. In the end, Xuanzang introduced yet another competing interpretation (attributed to Dharmapāla), which he learned from Śīlabhadra (Dharmapāla's student). It was in this last form of Yogācāra that Jī became an expert.

Jī went on to found the Weishi 唯識 "Representation Only" (vijñapti-mātra) school in China. Here we need to be a little bit careful. While in India we see distinct schools of Buddhism, by the time such ideas got to China the boundaries were less clear. Moreover, the Chinese were constantly trying to harmonise all the different Buddhist teachings, either by creating a synthesis (often incorporating Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, Huayan, and Tathāgatagarbha into one) or by creating hierarchical schemes to classify schools in order of profundity, thus subsuming lower ranked schools within higher ranked ones.

The name of Jī's "school" derives from the seminal Yogācāra treatise by Vasubandhu: Triṃśikā-vijñapti-mātratā-śāstra or The Thirty Verses on Representation Only Treatise (though it is often abbreviated to Triṃśīkā). Xuanzang translated the Triṃsikā as Wéishì sānshí lùn sòng «唯識三十論頌» (T 1586) in 648 CE (i.e. very early on). However, Xuanzang's translation also included some edited translations of other authors on the Triṃśikā.

In 659 CE, Xuanzang translated Dharmapāla's commentary on the Triṃśaka, as Chéng wéishí lùn «成唯識論» (T 1585). This comprehensive explanation of Yogācāra became the primary text of Jī's Weishi school. Jī's commentary on Xuanzang's translation was called Chéng wéishílùn shùjì 成唯識論述記 (T 1830); often referred to simply as Shuji 述記. Jī lauded Xuanzang's approach and disparaged Paramārtha's. Another of Xuanzang's assistants, the Korean monk Woncheuk, was well-versed in existing Chinese Yogācāra and disagreed with Xuanzang (and thus Kuījī) on the best interpretation (Jorgensen 2002).

Xuanzang died in early 664 CE, at which point Emperor Gaozong withdrew the funding for, and disbanded, his translation team. Jī returned to live in Dàcí’ēn Sì 大慈恩寺 and devoted himself to scholarship. He wrote numerous other commentaries on Yogācāra treatises and some sutras, including the Heart Sutra.

The Weishi 唯識 school is also commonly referred to as Fǎxiàng 法相 "dharma characteristics", originally a pejorative label bestowed by their opponents (and thus not really suitable). The Weishi school had two further leaders but it gradually fizzled out. Which was more or less the end of Xuanzang's influence on Chinese Buddhism. 

Jī died in 682 CE. But not before composing an undated commentary on the Heart Sutra: 

Bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng yōuzàn «般若波羅蜜多心經幽贊» “Profound Explanation of the Sutra of the Essence of Prajñāpāramitā” (T 1710). 

The date of Jī's death is important for Heart Sutra research since we know that his commentary on the Heart Sutra had to have been composed before this. This makes it a strong candidate for being the first commentary. The other main contender, Woncheuk's commentary, is also undated (he died in 696 CE). 

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

He, Huanhuan. (2017). “Whence Came the Name Kuiji Instead of Just Ji.” The Eastern Buddhist 48(2): 51-68.

Jorgensen, John. (2002). “Representing Wŏnch’ŭk: Meditations on Medieval East Asian Biographies”. In Religion and Biography in China and Tibet, edited by Benjamin Penny. Routledge.

Weinstein, Stanley. (1959). ‘A Biographical Study of Tz’ŭ-ên.’ Monumenta Nipponica 15(1/2): 119-149.

~~oOo~~

唐京兆大慈恩寺窺基傳

Táng Jīngzhào Dà Cí’ēn Sì Kuījī Zhuàn

Biography of Kuījī of Dà Cí’ēn Temple in Jīngzhào, Tang

From the Sòng Gāosēng Zhuàn 宋高僧傳 (T 2061; 725b18-726c05), compiled by Zanning 贊寧, 988 CE.

The monk Kuījī 窺基, courtesy name Hóngdào 洪道, belonged to the Yùchí 尉遲 clan and was a native of Cháng’ān 長安 in Jīngzhào 京兆. The ancestors of the Yùchí clan arose alongside the Later Wei dynasty and were known as the Yùchí bù 尉遲部 "Yùchí Tribe." Like the feudal states of ancient China, they were a semi-autonomous group. When they integrated into Chinese society, they adopted their tribal name as their surname.

* Note that the name 尉遲 was originally Central Asian.

Luójiā 羅迦 was Kuiji’s ancestor, he was a descendant of the sixth generation of the Yùchí clan and a general of the Western Garrison in Sui Dynasty’s Dàizhōu 代州 (an ancient administrative region in China, located in what is now part of Shanxi Province 山西省).

Kuiji’s father, Zōng 宗, held the titles of General of the Left Imperial Guard, Governor of Songzhou, and Duke of Jiangyou County in the Tang Dynasty. His uncle, Dé 德, was the Duke of È 鄂, and his biography is recorded in the Táng Shū 唐書 "History of the Tang Dynasty". Kuiji’s mother, Madame Péi 裴氏, dreamed of swallowing a moon, and upon waking, she found herself pregnant. When Kuiji was born, he was unlike other children, displaying remarkable intelligence and a natural aptitude for learning.

The Master Xuánzàng 玄奘 first noticed Kuiji on the road, observing his handsome features and dignified demeanour. Xuánzàng remarked, “This is surely the offspring of a military family. If fate allows, he should become my disciple, and my teachings will find a worthy successor.”

Xuánzàng also recalled a divination he had performed in India, which predicted a favourable outcome: “If the master returns east, a wise disciple will appear.” Xuánzàng then visited Kuiji’s father, subtly suggesting that Kuiji should become a monk. His father replied, “He is rough and unruly; how could he endure monastic discipline?” Xuánzàng responded, “Such a temperament could only come from a general, and only I can recognize his potential.” Though his father agreed, Kuiji himself resisted. After much persuasion, Kuiji finally relented but declared, “I will only take monastic vows if three conditions are met: I will not renounce desires, meat, or eating after noon.” Xuánzàng, using skilful means, agreed to these terms, knowing he could later guide Kuiji toward enlightenment. This led to Kuiji being mockingly called the “Monk of Three Carts” by locals. This occurred in the 22nd year of the Zhēnguān 貞觀 era (648 CE).

* note that Weinstein (1959) considers this narrative about Xuanzang and Ji to be apocryphal and it is not corroborated by other sources.

Kuiji himself once wrote, “At the age of nine, I faced hardship and gradually distanced myself from worldly frivolities.” If this is true, then the story of the “Three Carts” is likely an exaggeration. By the age of seventeen, Kuiji had entered the monastic community. Upon ordination, he was appointed as Xuánzàng’s disciple and initially resided at Guǎngfú Sì 廣福寺.

Later, by imperial decree, he was selected among the most intelligent monks to join Dàcí’ēn Sì 大慈恩寺. There, he studied Sanskrit under Xuánzàng, mastering its complexities with ease. His knowledge and insight earned widespread admiration. He memorized vast portions of Buddhist texts effortlessly, rarely needing to revisit them. At twenty-five, he was summoned to assist in translating scriptures, and he lectured on over thirty texts from both the Mahayana and Hinayana traditions. He was diligent in his studies and authored numerous commentaries, totalling around one hundred works.

When Xuánzàng translated the Wéishí Lùn 唯識論 (Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi "Consciousness-Only Treatise"), Kuiji initially collaborated with three others: Fǎng 昉, Shàng 尚, and Guāng 光. However, after a few days, Kuiji requested to withdraw. When Xuánzàng asked why, Kuiji replied, “I dreamt of a golden figure and awoke to seek the Dharma. Though I have grasped the teachings, I fear I have lost their essence. I do not wish to contribute to a diluted version. If the text is unified under one author, responsibility will be clear.” Xuánzàng agreed and dismissed the other three, entrusting the task solely to Kuiji, recognizing his superior ability.

On one occasion, Kuiji felt disheartened when another monk, Cè 測 of Xīmíng Sì 西明寺 (i.e. Woncheuk), secretly listened to his lectures on the Wéishí Lùn 唯識論 (Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi) and began teaching it himself. Xuánzàng consoled Kuiji, saying, “Though Cè has written a commentary, he has not mastered the principles of logic.” Xuánzàng then taught Kuiji the works of Dignāga, and Kuiji excelled in the “Three Syllogisms,” becoming unparalleled in his ability to debate and expound on Buddhist philosophy.

Kuiji later travelled to Wǔtái Shān 五臺山, where he had a profound dream. In the dream, he stood halfway up a mountain, hearing the cries of countless suffering beings below. He climbed to the summit, which was made of lapis lazuli, and saw all the lands of the world. A voice from a city above called out, “Halt! Kuiji, you should not be here yet.” Two heavenly children emerged and asked, “Do you see the suffering beings below?” Kuiji replied, “I hear them but cannot see them.” The children gave him a sword and instructed him to cut open his abdomen. When he did, two beams of light shone forth, illuminating the suffering below. The children then gave him scrolls and a brush, which he took with him. Upon waking, Kuiji discovered the Mílè Shàngshēng Jīng 彌勒上生經 (Maitreya Sutra) glowing in the temple. He interpreted this as a sign from Maitreya to write a commentary on the sutra. As he wrote, relics fell from his brush, a miraculous occurrence.

Kuiji was known for his towering stature and commanding presence, yet he was deeply compassionate and tirelessly taught others. He built statues of Maitreya and Manjushri and copied the Jīnzì Bōrě Jīng 金字般若經 "Prajna Sutra in Gold Ink," which also emitted divine light. His disciples revered him as a successor to Xuánzàng.

Kuiji passed away on the 13th day of the 11th month in the first year of Yǒngchún 永淳 (27 December 682 CE) at the age of fifty-one. He was buried near Xuánzàng’s tomb, and his funeral was attended by a vast crowd of monks and laypeople. Kuiji’s legacy as a master of Buddhist philosophy and commentary endures to this day.

~~oOo~~

Classical is Cooler

Many extravagant claims are made for quantum physics, and in comparison classical physics often seems to be dismissed, almost as though it is of little consequence.

Amongst other things, it has long bugged me that Buddhists hijack quantum mechanics and combine it with the worst of Buddhist philosophy—i.e. Madhyamaka—to create a monstrous form of bullshit. I've previously written three essays that try to address the perennial quantum bullshit that thrives amongst Buddhists.

• Erwin Schrödinger Didn't Have a Cat (29 October 2010).
• Buddhism and the Observer Effect in Quantum Mechanics (18 July 2014)
• Quantum Bullshit (05 October 2018)

Although, I don't seem to have had any appreciable effect on the levels of bullshit.

In this essay, I'm going to make an argument that classical physics is, in fact, much cooler than quantum physics, especially the bullshit quantum physics that doesn't use any mathematics

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

One way of describing the observable universe is to state the scales of mass, length, and energy it covers.

• The total mass of the observable universe is thought to be in order or 10⁵³ kg. From the smallest objects (electrons) to the whole universe is about 84 orders of magnitude (powers of ten).
• The observable universe is about 4 x 10²⁶ metres in diameter; and from the smallest possible length (the Planck length) to the whole is about 61 orders of magnitude.
• E=mc² gives the total energy of the universe as about 10⁷⁰ joules, and covers about 61 orders of magnitude.

Human beings can perceive roughly 18 orders of magnitude of mass, 12 of length, and 11 of energy, roughly in the middle of each scale. Much of the universe is imperceptible to our naked senses. Human beings evolved and thrived for hundreds of thousands of years without knowing anything beyond what we could see, hear, smell, taste, or touch with our naked senses.

It was the invention of the ground glass lens that alerted us to the existence of both larger scales (telescope) and smaller scales (microscope). And for this reason I count the lens the most significant invention in the history of science. I know people count Copernicus as the first European scientist, but to my mind he was merely a precursor. Galileo was the first to make systematic observations and thereby discover new things about the universe, e.g. acceleration due to gravity is a constant, the moon's surface is not smooth but cratered, and that Jupiter has satellites. Note that Galileo did not have evidence or a good case for a "heliocentric universe" (and his ideas about this were wrong in several ways, but that's another story).

400 years later, we have a number of hugely successful theories of how the universe works. We've identified four fundamental forces and two kinds of particle: fermions and bosons. However, no single approach to physics can cover all the many orders of magnitude. All of our explanations are limited in their scope. Newtonian mechanics fails with large masses or high relative velocities. Relativity fails on the nanoscale and especially at the time of the big bang. Quantum physics fails on the macro-scale.

Physicists still hope to find a way of reconciling relativity and quantum physics, which they predict will produce a single mathematical formalism that can describe our universe at any scale. After more than a century of trying, we don't seem to be any closer to this. To be fair a lot of time, effort, and resources went into pursuing so-called "string theory" which has proven to be a dead end, at least as far as reconciling nano and macro physics. 

What I want to do in the rest of this essay is contrast classical physics and quantum physics.

Classical Physics

Classical physics is a primarily a description of the world that we perceive. As such, classical physics will always be salient and applicable to our lives. When we need a lever to move something, we use classical physics. When we want to describe the universe on the largest scale, we use classical physics. This means that classical physics is largely intuitive (even if the maths is not). 

Classical physics is testable and has been extensively tested. While it was never my favourite subject, I studied physics as a distinct subject for four years up to undergraduate level and in that time I did many experiments. I was able, for example, to observe the applicability of ideas like Newton's laws of motion. 

I have personally observed that m₁v₁ = m₂v₂ (i.e. momentum is conserved). And you can too, if you put your mind to it. Classical physics is highly democratic in the sense that anyone can test its predictions relatively easily.

Classical physics shows that the universe (on this scale) follows relatively simple patterns of evolution over time that can be written down as mathematical statements. In the 19th century, such expressions were called "laws". By the mid 20th century we called them "theories". Simple examples include:

• the relationship between pressure (P), volume (V), and temperature (T) of any gas is PV/T = constant.
• the relationship between voltage (V), current (I), and resistance (R) in a circuit is V=IR.
• the relationship between force and acceleration of an object with mass is F=ma.

The mathematics of relativity is considerably more complex than these examples, but one gains several degrees of accuracy (≈ numbers after the decimal point) as compensation.

An interesting feature of our experience of the world is that time goes in one direction. This is a consequence of entropy. We can always tell when a film is playing backwards, for example, because the causality is all wrong. Broken cups never spontaneously reform and leap up from the floor to appear unbroken in our hands. Whole cups common fall down to the floor and smash. Once again, classical physics is intuitive.

Classical physics has never been made into an analogy by New Age gurus. No one ever compared the Heart Sutra to classical physics. No one ever says classical physics is "weird" or counter-intuitive. The fixed speed of light is a little counter-intuitive but it doesn't lend itself to the kind of Romantic flights of fancy that make religion seem interesting. If anything, religieux are apt to dismiss the whole topic of classical physics as irrelevant to "spirituality". Classical physics seems to resist being co-opted by woo-mungers.

And then there is quantum physics...

Quantum

Mathematically, quantum physics is profoundly accurate and precise method of predicting probabilities. However, unlike classical physics no one knows why it works. Literally, no one knows how the mathematics relates to reality. There are lots of ideas, each more counter-intuitive than the next and each relies on a series of assumptions that are beyond the scope of the mathematical formalism. But each set of assumptions leads to radically different metaphysics! And there is no agreement on which assumptions are valid. And at present there is no way to test these theories. I've seen Sean Carroll argue that Many Worlds does make testable predictions, but as far as I know, they have not been tested.

Einstein was of the opinion that quantum physics was incomplete. Sadly his proposed solution to this seems to have been ruled out. But still, I think the only viable stance is to consider quantum theory as incomplete until such time as we know how it relates to reality.

Which brings us to the first false claim that is commonly asserted by scientists: "the universe is deterministic." This assumes that quantum theory explains how matter behaves. But it doesn't. We don't know how mathematics relates to reality. So we don't know if the universe is deterministic or not. The claim that the the universe is deterministic goes far beyond our present state of knowledge. Most interpretations of quantum physics treat it as probabilistic rather than deterministic. And this undermines all claims that the universe is deterministic.

Another common falsehood is "quantum mechanics is a description of reality". But it should already be apparent that this is simply not true. Physicists do not know how the mathematics of quantum physics relates to reality. All they know is that the mathematics accurately assesses the probabilities of the various states that the system can be in over time. It doesn't tell us what will happen, at best it tells us what can happen.

At the popular level, quantum physics is plagued by vagueness and misleading statements. Scientists talk about "the wavefunction" as an independent thing (hypostatisation) and even as a physical thing (reification), when is it in fact an abstract mathematical function. They talk about "wave-like" behaviour without ever distinguishing this from actual wave behaviour. "Observation", so crucial to some approaches, is vague and more or less impossible to define.

We see statements like "energy is quantised" as though all energy is quantised. But this is not true. If you measure radiation from the sun, for example, it smoothly spans the entire electromagnetic spectrum (the sun glows because its hot, and that glow is blackbody radiation which is smooth rather than discreet). Energy is only quantised in atoms. And the solar spectrum is itself proof of this because the atoms in the sun absorb energy at precise wavelengths, causing the spectrum of sunlight to have darker bands when viewed at a fine enough grain.

The quantisation in atoms is explained in terms of an electron in an atom being conceived of as a standing wave - which means it can only vibrate at frequencies that allow for a whole number of wavelengths. For example, the harmonic series on a guitar string is also "quantised": the diagram shows different modes of vibration. The top shows wavelength = string length. but the string can also vibrate at twice the fundamental frequency so that 2 wavelengths = string length, then 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 wavelengths = string length (out to infinity).

The energy levels for electrons in atoms show a similar pattern. But remember that an electron is 3 dimensional. Spherical harmonics look more like this

Which is similar to how we think electron orbitals look in Hydrogen.

Some of these results are confirmed by the shapes of molecules, which can be determined independently, for example by X-ray crystallography.

People talk about "measuring where the electron is in the atom". But this is almost pure bullshit. No one has ever measured the position of an electron in an atom. It's not possible. Within an atom, an electron is distorted into a spherical standing wave. "Position" is meaningless in this context. As are most other particle-related ideas. And remember, we cannot solve the equations when there are two or more electrons, we can only estimate (though current estimates are still very accurate).

We also see statements like "a system can exist in multiple states simultaneously", usually referred to as superposition (the "position" part is entirely misleading). This phrase is often used in popular explanations of quantum mechanics, but it’s misleading. The wavefunction describes a superposition of probability amplitudes, it does not describe a coexistence of multiple physical states. In fact, the term "state"—as it is usually used—is not applicable here at all, precisely because in normal usage it implies existence. In this context "state" confusingly means every single possible state, each with its own probability.

For example, if an electron has the wavefunction is ψ = ψ₁ + ψ₂ it doesn’t mean the electron is "in both states ψ₁ and ψ₂ at once." This is because neither ψ₁ nor ψ₂ is a physical state. Each is a probability distribution. So what superposition means is that, at some time, the electron's state has a probability distribution that reflects the combined amplitudes of ψ₁ and ψ₂. There is and can be no superposition of physical states, nor is their any theoretical possibility of observing such a thing.

All of those "interpretations" that treat the wavefunction as real simply assert its existence as axiomatic and introduce further a priori assumptions into order to try to make sense of this mess. If we make no assumptions then there is nothing about the mathematical formalism of quantum mechanics that forces us to think of the wavefunction as a real thing rather than an abstraction. It's a probability distribution. Which is an abstraction.

Which means that the idea that the wave-function can "collapse" is nonsensical. All probability distributions without exception "collapse" at the point of measurement.

If I roll a die, I get one number facing up. It can be any one of the six numbers. And each number is equally likely to be face up after a roll. Before I roll the die, the "wavefunction" of the die describes 6 possible "states" each of which is equally likely. When I roll the die I get one answer. Has anything mysterious happened? I think not. Let's say I roll a 2. I don't have to explain what happened to 1,3,4,5 and 6. Nothing happened to them, because they are not things. They are just unrealised possibilities. I get one result because only one result is physically possible. But before I know which result I have, all the possibilities have a finite probability. There's nothing "weird" or "mysterious" about this unless one first reifies the wavefunction.

Indeed, the whole idea of the "measurement problem" appears to be based on a serious misconception (as far as I can see). The measurement problem is based on the idea that the Schrödinger equation describes a system as existing in multiple physical states. But it doesn't. It describes probability distribution of possible physical states. A potentiality is not an existing state.

The only time measuring becomes problematic is when we assume that the wavefunction is a thing (reification) or that it reflects existent states rather then potential states. And these moves are simply mistakes.

Ironically, the one thing that Schrödinger's equation is not, as Nick Lucid explains, is a wave equation. The generalised wave equation contains a second-order partial differential with respect to time (a distorting force is countered by a restoring force, causing acceleration). This is a fascinating observation. I gather that using the constant i (√-1) in the Schrödinger equation allows for some "wave-like" behaviour, but no one really talks about this in lectures on quantum physics. Nor do they distinguish "wave" from "wave-like". And we still have to insist that the "wave-like" behaviour in question is a wave of probability, not a physical wave.

But then Nick Lucid, who typically is quite lucid (despite his "crazy" schtick), also introduces his video by saying "Schrödinger's equation governs the behavior of tiny quantum particles by treating them as wave functions." No equation anywhere "governs" anything. The equation describes the probability of a range of possible states. It's a descriptive law, not a prescriptive law. And as Lucid goes on to say, the equation in question is not a wave equation, it's a heat equation. The one thing that Schrödinger's equation doesn't do is "govern the behavior of tiny quantum particles".

This generalises: physics is a description, not a prescription. Abstract mathematical expressions cannot "govern" concrete entities. And in the case of quantum physics, it doesn't seem to relate to the "behaviour" either, since it only predicts the probability of any given state following from the present state. So it's not even a description of actual behaviour, just a description of potential behaviour at any point in time. With the most precise prediction as to probability, we still don't know what's going to happen next, and the actual outcome could always be the least likely outcome. That's why quantum tunneling is a thing, for example.

Unlike classical physics, which every undergraduate students proves to their own satisfaction, nano-scale physics is impossible to observe directly. It takes massive, complicated, and expensive equipment to get information from that scale. Information goes through many stages of amplification and transformation (from one kind of energy to another) before anything perceptible emerges. And that has to be processed by powerful computers before it makes any sense. And then interpreted by human beings.

That blip on the graph at 125 GeV that the LHC produced as evidence of the Higgs Boson is abstracted to the n^th degree from the thing itself.

At no time was a Higgs Boson ever observed, and at no time in the future will one ever be observed. What was observed was a particular kind of decay product, which the logic of the standard model says can only be produced if a Higgs Boson decays in the way that Peter Higgs predicted. Assuming that the standard model is right. Keep in mind that the model didn't predict the energy of the Higgs particle exactly. There was actually a lot of uncertainty. And the two different detectors actually measured slightly different numbers. Moreover, do you see how wide that peak was? That width is experiment error. Maybe the energy of the Higgs is 125 GeV, or maybe its a little more or a little less?

We cannot ever see the nano-scale. And because of this, we simply cannot imagine the nano-scale.

A 1 gram diamond, for example contains in the order of 5 x 10²² atoms. How big would that diamond be if each atom of carbon was 1mm³ or roughly the size of a grain of salt? It would be 5 x 10¹³ cubic metres. This is roughly the volume of Mount Everest. So an atom is to a grain of salt, as a grain of salt is to Mt Everest.

Imagination simply fails.

Conclusion

In short, at least at the popular level, quantum physics is a constant source of vague or misleading information. It is plagued by careless use of language and outright false claims by scientists themselves. The philosophy of quantum physics is difficult, but on the whole it fails to adequately distinguish epistemology and metaphysics. This is made worse by kooks and charlatans leveraging the confusion to pull the wool over our eyes. Sometimes, the kooks and the scientists are in a superposition: notably Eugene Wigner's theory about "consciousness" (another abstraction) collapsing the wavefunction. Wigner won a Nobel, but he was also a serious kook. And he has been responsible for a mountain of bullshit as a result.

Most of what is said about quantum physics outside of university lecture halls is bullshit, and quite a bit that is said in them is also bullshit or at least partially digested hay. Everything that is said about Buddhism and quantum physics is mendacious bullshit.

There is no doubt that insights gained from quantum physics are important and valuable, but the whole thing is over-hyped and plagued by nonsense. The actual work is largely about approximating solutions to the insoluble mathematical equations, which at best give us probabilities. It works remarkably well, but no one knows why.

The idea that quantum physics is any kind of "description of reality" is pure bullshit. It's a probability distribution, for a reality that no understands any better now than when physics genius Richard Feynman said: "No one understands quantum mechanics".

Classical physics on the other hand is seldom vague or misleading. It resists being leveraged by kooks by being precisely and accurately defined. It can readily be tested by more or less anyone. Classical physics is much less prone to bullshit. No one ever bothers to compare Buddhism to classical physics. Which is a good sign.

Classical physics is not only cooler than quantum physics. It is way cooler. 

Coda

If anyone is still unconvinced that quantum theory has no conceivable relationship with Buddhism, then I invite you to watch this video introduction to quantum mechanics from an Oxford University undergraduate physics course. This is a no bullshit course. 

I defy anyone to connect anything said in this video to any aspect of Buddhist doctrine. 

Minor Figures: Prajñā.

Bānrě 般若 or Prajñā, was a Buddhist monk from India who travelled to China and translated Buddhist texts. Prajñā was credited with the translation of Bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» (T 253), though as we saw in the essay on Lìyán 利言, Chinese records show that Prajñā could not communicate in Chinese.

The following comments are my notes based on the biographical sketch of Bānrě 般若 or Prajñā found in the Zhēnyuán xīn dìng shìjiào mùlù «貞元新定釋教目錄» (T2157: 55.891a-), a catalogue of Buddhist texts in Chinese translation, compiled ca 800 CE by Yuánzhào 圓照. I draw additional material from Siu Sai-Yau's 蕭世友 PhD thesis (2019) and his recent book (2024). I'm processing this information for inclusion in my book.

My Thanks to Siu Sai-Yau for pointing me to this passage and for making his (2024) book open access. Bānrě 般若 is important to my work because he is credited with translating the Bānrě bōluómìduō xīn jīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» (T 253), along with Lìyán 利言 and others. 

Prajñā travelled to China by the southern sea route.

Upon learning that Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva was preaching in the Central Plains, Prajña resolved to visit China and propagate Buddhism. Carrying the original Sanskrit scriptures, he arrived in Guangzhou, during the early years of Emperor Dezong’s Jianzhong 建中 period (780–783) via the sea route. From there, he made his way to the capital. Upon the onset of the Zhenyuan 貞元 period, Prajña took up residence at the home of his relative, Luo Haoxin 羅好心, who held the position of a commander in the forbidden army, and patiently awaited an opportunity to commence his scripture translation endeavors. (Siu 2024: 61)

Introducing himself to the Emperor Táng Dézōng 唐德宗 (779 – 805 CE), Bānrě 般若 says:

I humbly state that I was born in Kapiśa. At fourteen, I left my homeland and travelled south to India, where I heard teachings I had not understood before. For over twenty years, I made pilgrimages to the sacred sites, including the Twin Trees and the Eight Stūpas. Having studied the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna, I vowed to repay the four kindnesses. From afar, I have long admired China, often wishing to present offerings to the court but lacking the means. Recently, through my cousin Luó Hǎoxīn 羅好心, a tenth-rank officer of the Right Divine Strategy Army and Prince of Xīnpíng, who serves in the Imperial Guard, I was able to submit my petition and have it heard by Your Majesty. This is indeed my great fortune. (T 2157: 55.893a7-11)

The imperial response to Bānrě was positive:

On Zhēnyuán 貞元 6.7.25 [i.e. 25 August 790 CE], an imperial edict granted the honorary title Tripiṭaka and a purple kāṣāya robe. An edict was also issued for the Kingdom of Kapiśa to present a Sanskrit copy of the Liù Pāramì Jīng «六波羅蜜經» *Ṣaṭpāramitā Sūtra. The śramaṇa Bānrě 般若 should be granted the title “Tripiṭaka Bānrě” and also given a purple robe. (T 2157: 55.893c6-9)

The Liù Pāramì Jīng «六波羅蜜經» is no longer extant. Regarding the Heart Sutra, Siu (2019: 33) notes

般若、利言重譯廣本《心經》的原因，主要是因為時人認為玄奘舊譯內容有不足之處。般若來華所攜梵本中，有內容更為完備、前所未見的《心經》版本。

"As for the reason behind Bānruò and Lìyán's retranslation of the expanded Heart Sūtra, it was primarily due to the perception among contemporaries that Xuanzang’s earlier translation was lacking in some respects. Bānruò had brought with him a Sanskrit version containing a more complete and previously unseen rendition of the Heart Sūtra."

Traditionally, in China, a sutra is held to be composed of three “sections” (sānfēn kē jīng 三分科經): (1) an introduction (xùfēn 序分 “introductory section”; Skt. nidāna), (2) the main body of the text (zhèngzōng fēn 正宗分 “primary teaching section”) and, (3) a conclusion (liútōng fēn 流通分 literally “dissemination section”). 

The early commentaries by Kuījī 窺基 (T 1710), Woncheuk 圓測 (T 1711), Jìngmài 靖邁 (X 522), Fǎzàng 法藏 (T 1712), and Huìjìng 慧浄 (X 521) all mention the absence of the intro and conclusion in the Heart Sutra (the implications of this are discussed in my forthcoming book).

There follows a lengthy biographical narrative, interspersed with letters to and from the Emperor. As with other Buddhist hagiographers, Yuánzhào was eager to represent Buddhists as favoured by the Emperor of the day.

Siu (2019: 34) also notes:

譯本有傳入韓國地區，現時最早的般若、利言本漢文抄經便是見於《高麗大藏經》。 

"The translation also reached Korea, where the earliest surviving copy of the Chinese Bānrě and Lìyán version [i.e. T 253] appears in the Goryeo Tripitaka." 

The Goryeo Tripitaka is known in Chinese as Gāolí Dàzàngjīng 高麗大藏經; Korean: Goryeo Daejanggyeong 고려대장경. It literally means: Korean Great Treasury [of] Scripture. Although the character zàng 藏 here means "store", it also means "hide, conceal". Gāolí 高麗 is literally "lofty and beautiful"; so not a bad ethnonym. 

The Goryeo Tripitaka was printed from carved woodblocks. The first version was created in the 11th century but was later destroyed by the Mongols. A complete set of the carved woodblocks of the second version commissioned ca. 1236–1251 survives and is stored at Haeinsa Temple in South Korea (a UNESCO World Heritage Site).

Note that the Goryeo Tripitaka has also been referred to as the Tripitaka Koreana. In 2013, Robert Buswell noted: "The reality is that Goryeo Daejanggyeong is much bigger and broader in scale than the nomenclature used for the Tripitaka Koreana". In my book, I follow Buswell's suggestion and refer to the Korean Buddhist Canon.

As Siu notes, there is a gap of some centuries between the ostensible production of T253 (ca 788) and the earliest witness to the content of the text in the Korean Buddhist Canon (ca. 1236–1251). And we have no idea what happened to the text in the meantime. There are no commentaries on T253.

The biographical sketch in the Zhēnyuán lù «貞元錄» (T 2157) discusses Bānrě 般若 and the Heart Sutra attributed to him and records a memorial sent to the Emperor by a Buddhist monk called Zhìróu 智柔.

Zhìróu 智柔, the senior monk from Qiānfú Temple 千福寺, was known for his lectures and discourses. His observance of the precepts was rigorous, and he took delight in the Mahāyāna. He transmitted the Huāyán jīng «華嚴經» “Avataṃsaka Sūtra” and the Dàfódǐng «大佛頂» “Mahābuddhatopa Sūtra”. He also regularly chanted and contemplated the Bānrě xīnjīng 般若心經. This sūtra was translated by Luóshí 羅什 [Kumārajīva] and is titled Dàmíng zhòujīng «大明呪經».

When the Dharma Master Xuánzàng 玄奘 was about to depart westward, a divine being (shénrén 神人) bestowed [the Heart Sutra] upon him. While travelling through the treacherous sands and dangers, he sincerely chanted and upheld it, causing calamities and obstacles to recede. This is a great incantation (dàshén zhòu 大神呪), and these words are not in vain (bù xū 不虛).

Note that the Dàmíng zhòujīng «大明呪經» (T 250) enters the historical record in 730 CE in the Kaiyuan Catalog, i.e. Kāiyuán shìjiào lù «開元釋教錄» (T 2154). The attribution to Kumārajīva is clearly false (see Watanabe 1990).

Later, a Sanskrit text (fàn jiā 梵夾) was obtained. It was translated with no differences, except the absence of the introduction section (xùfēn 序分) and the later distribution (liútōng 流通) section.

Then, near the end of the Kāiyuán 開元 era (713 to 741 CE), the Tripiṭaka monk Fǎyuè 法月 retranslated this sūtra (T252). Both texts are extant. Now, we have obtained a copy from the Tripiṭaka monk Bānruò 般若, which includes these [missing] sections, making it the same original text as Fǎyuè's translation, but a different version.

With sincere intention, I earnestly request the reissue of the authentic text. Before I could consult in detail, the Tripiṭaka monk departed on a mission.

On the eleventh day of the eighth month, the work of verifying meanings, polishing the text, and transcribing was completed. A memorial was prepared and submitted, with the intent to circulate it widely.

Śramaṇa Zhìróu states:

"I humbly submit that the profound wisdom of the sages is vast and, through dissemination, spreads even further. The true source, supremely wondrous, is conveyed through words and symbols to be transmitted. This is the origin of the teachings of the many sages and the mother of all sūtras. Previously, the śramaṇa Xuánzàng translated it for circulation, and while the meaning was fully conveyed without omission, the text was missing the beginning. Yesterday, I encountered Bānrě, a monk from the Kingdom of Kapiśa, and personally saw the Sanskrit text. I earnestly requested him to transmit this understanding and again added praise and assistance. Only then did I realize that the Vulture Peak monastery truly revealed these noble words.

Those who recite it dispel doubts, and the true teachings spread even further. I humbly submit that Your Majesty personally upholds the Buddha's instructions, doing all that is good without exception. The Way reaches all beings, transforming everyone. Zhìróu 智柔, without considering his own limited abilities, rashly offers his sincere but humble dedication.

I hope to support the imperial virtues and contribute to the longevity of the sage. I humbly beg that Your Majesty, with heavenly insight, will review these noble words. If they are suitable, I respectfully request that they be promulgated within and beyond the court. In this way, all deluded beings, even through countless ages, may find great happiness. Unable to fully express my utmost sincerity, I respectfully submit this memorial for Your Majesty's attention." —(T 2157: 55.893c9-894a1)

Note that Yuánzhào 圓照 considers T 252 and T 253 to be the same text. In the sense that both texts incorporate T251 verbatim, they are the same. However, the introduction and conclusions of T 252 and T 253 could hardly be more different. Which suggests he didn't actually compare them. 

Note also that Yuánzhào conflates Bānrě xīnjīng 般若心經 (T 251) and Dàmíng zhòujīng «大明呪經» (T 250). Again, while these two texts are broadly similar, there are some significant differences. These four texts—T 250, 251, 252, and 253—are four of the five major versions of the text. The fifth is the Sanskrit translation, i.e. Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya. T 252 is unique and was likely composed in Chinese. We know very little about the provenance of it. T 254 is a lightly edited version of T 253. T 255 was a Dunhuang text and has not yet been properly studied in its context. T 257 is a later translation from Sanskrit. 

Zhìróu 智柔 is relatively unknown. He is mentioned only once, in passing, in the Gāosēng Zhuàn «高僧傳» (T 2061: 50.721b27) and that in connection with Prajñā:

即貞元十一年也。至十二年六月，詔於崇福寺翻譯，罽賓沙門般若宣梵文，洛京天宮寺廣濟譯語，西明寺圓照筆受，智柔、智通綴文，成都府正覺寺道恒、鑒虛潤文，千福寺大通證義，澄觀、靈邃詳定，神策軍護軍中尉霍仙鳴、左街功德使竇文場寫進，十四年二月解座。(T 2061: 50.721b25-c2)

This was in the 11th year of the Zhēnyuán era. By the 6th month of the 12th year, an imperial edict was issued for the translation at Chóngfú Monastery 崇福寺. The śramaṇa Bānrě 般若 from Kapiśa recited the Sanskrit text, while the text was rendered into Chinese at Tiāngōng Monastery 天宮寺 in Luòyáng by Guǎngjì 廣濟. Yuánzhào 圓照 from Xīmíng Monastery 西明寺 recorded it in writing, with Zhìróu 智柔 and Zhìtōng 智通 editing the text. Dàohéng 道恒 and Jiànxū 鑒虛 from Zhèngjué Monastery 正覺寺 in Chéngdū polished the wording, while Dàtōng 大通 from Qiānfú Monastery 千福寺 verified the meaning. Chéngguān 澄觀 and Língsuì 靈邃 reviewed and finalized it. The Military Protector of the Divine Strategy Army, Lieutenant Huò Xiānmíng 霍仙鳴, and Dòu Wénchǎng 竇文場, Director of Merit on the Left Street, transcribed and submitted the work, completing the project by the 2nd month of the 14th year.

From this, we imply that Prajñā's only role in the translation was reciting the Sanskrit text. This seems to be quite typical. Indian or Central Asian monks who rocked up in Chang'an did not speak Chinese and most likely never gained the kind of mastery of the language required for discussion highly specialised Buddhist doctrines. If this was in Europe, we'd credit Guǎngjì 廣濟 with the translation. But Chinese traditions demands that it is credited to Prajñā. 

Of note, is the connection between Prajñā and the Japanese monk Kūkai, who was in Chang'an ca 802-804 and wrote the first esoteric interpretation of the Xīn jīng. This is mentioned several times in Hakeda (1972). According to Kūkai, in the Shōrai mokuroku, Prajñā expressed a desire to travel to Japan and regretted that circumstances did not allow it. He gifted Kūkai with copies of new translations of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra (T 293) and the Ṣatpāramitā Sūtra (T 261), and a number of Sanskrit manuscripts.

What Did Prajñā Translate?

Siu's account of Prajñā and the Heart Sutra overlooks the fact that T 253 cannot be a straightforward translation from Sanskrit. Significantly, T 253 incorporates all of T 251, verbatim. This means that at best Prajñā and co. only translated the introduction and the conclusion of the Heart Sutra, while retaining all of the translation attributed to Xuanzang. And this seems to be a pattern with works attributed to Prajñā.

In the Chinese Buddhist Canonical Attributions database, created by Michael Radich and Jamie Norrish (who died recently), Bānrě is credited with a number of translations:

• Dàchéng Běnshēng Xīndì Guān Jīng «大乘本生心地觀經» (T 159)
• Bānrě Bōluómìduō Xīnjīng «般若波羅蜜多心經» (T 253)
• Dàchéng lǐqù liù bōluómìduō jīng «大乘理趣六波羅蜜多經» (T 261)
• Dàfāngguǎng fó huáyán jīng «大方廣佛華嚴經» (T 293)
• Dà huáyán zhǎngzhě wèn fó nàluóyán lì jīng «大花嚴長者問佛那羅延力經» (T 547)
• Zhūfó jìngjiè shè zhēnshí jīng « 諸佛境界攝真實經» (T 868)
• Shǒuhù guójiè zhǔ tuóluóní jīng «守護國界主陀羅尼經» (T 997)
• Fó shuō zào tǎ yánmìng gōngdé jīng «佛說造塔延命功德經» (T 1026)

Several of the entries repeat a note attributed to Atsushi Iseki, in which he summarises a Japanese article from 1954:

According to Tsukinowa [1954], it is recorded that Trepiṭaka Prajña/Prajñā 般若三藏 translated nine titles in seventy-five juan scriptures [sic], and also composed a Banre sanzang gu jin fanyi tu ji 般若三藏古今翻譯圖紀 in two juan. However, Tsukinowa states, probably the Gu jin fanyi tu ji 古今翻譯圖紀 was written by somebody else, and Prajña’s true translation work most likely only comprises the version of the “Heart” Sūtra 般若心經 in one juan T253, co-translated with Liyan 利言 and others. Tsukinowa believes that almost all other titles ascribed to Prajñā were his own compositions, because 1) no original texts of his works have been found; 2) no alternate translation have been found in Chinese nor in Tibetan; 3) none of those works are cited in Indian texts; and 4) the contents and style of those works of his are too peculiar to be proper translation.

Tsukinowa (1954) is in Japanese so I cannot check it, though the bibliographic details are included below. There also individual notes on all of these texts.

• T 159 "Translation attributed to Prajña, ed. 般若: 6th year of Zhenyuan (貞元), Tang dynasty (唐), 1 but it was more likely done by someone else at a later date."
• T261 is more complex. "It would be a little far-fetched to classify the entire text of T261 as apocryphal, since there probably did exist an original underlying Indic text. However, Yoritomi asserts, substantial additions were made in China."
• T 293 "T293 feigns the impression of a new translation by adding material to the text, but is based more on T279 than on the original Sanskrit."
• T 547 "Tsukinowa does not seem to believe that this text is a proper translation, but he does not state it explicitly"
• T 868 "Tsukinowa concludes that T868 is based on the Vajraśekhara, and was produced to serve as an introduction to it. He agrees with Ōmura Seigai 大村西崖, who states in his Mikkyō hattatsu shi 密教發達志 that T868 is a conspectus of various scriptures, refining, epitomising and synthesising their contents 綜合折衷し打て洗錬したるもの."
• T 997 "Tsukinowa argues that none of the ten juan of T997 is a true translation" The text is a compilation of passages from other texts.
• T 1026 "Tsukinowa states that T1026 is another example of a pattern by which Prajña uses bits of different texts in producing a scripture, while adding something new of his own composition."

See also the comments under the entry for Prajñā.

The overall impression is that Bānrě was more interested in transmitting ideas and practices than in upholding orthodoxy or faithfully transmitting texts. He used texts in a very flexible way. One of his signature moves was precisely adding new material to an existing translation and presenting it as a new translation. Which is exactly what happened to T 253.

Tsukinowa's comments are problematic for the historically dominant narrative. Given that (a) Bānrě didn't know Chinese and was reliant on Chinese Monks (notably Liyan) to translate; and (b) the "translations" attributed to him all seem to have copied material from a range of existing Chinese translations, we have to wonder what Bānrě's involvement in T 253 really was.

Conclusion

Bānrě 般若 or Prajñā, is a minor figure in the history of the Heart Sutra. He is credited with translating T 253, but this version of the text was never important in China: i.e. it was not used in liturgies or as magical protection in the way that the Xīn jīng (T 251) was. The oldest extant version of T253 is in the Korean Buddhist Canon from the 13th century.

Siu (2024) confirms that Chinese translation was generally a collective affair. We have to put aside the modern, European idea of a lone scholar toiling away in isolation. Moreover, it seems likely that visiting monks who brought Sanskrit texts were generally dependent on translators. Prajñā certainly was. 

Tsukinowa (1954) has made the case that all of his "translations" were not really translations. Prajñā mostly seems to have curated passages copied from existing texts, sometimes adding them to other existing translations. But this editing seems to have happened in Chinese and evidence suggests that Prajñā could not speak Chinese. So this is a mystery. 

Tsukinowa was of the opinion that only T 253 was a genuine translation. But T 253 perfectly fits that pattern of other works attributed to Prajñā. For example, the main body of T 253 simply reproduces the text of T 251, but it adds the missing introduction and conclusion. 

Thus, if Prajñā had any input at all, it was only in the introduction and conclusion that were added to give the impression that the Heart Sutra was an authentic sutra.

The role of Liyan in the creation of T 252 and T 253 seems to deserve more attention, especially in the light of his role as Prajñā's day-to-day translator. Liyan seems to have been from Kucha and thus would have approached China via Dunhuang, which is home to numerous Heart Sutra manuscripts and some unique versions of the text that have yet to be formally studied. Tibetans invaded and controlled Dunhuang ca. 786-848. (On the Tibetan occupation of Dunhuang see The Chinese under Tibetan rule). 

It seems possible that Liyan was responsible for adding the missing introduction and conclusion to the Xīn jīng, creating both T 252 and T 253. In the case of T 253, he did this under the guidance of Prajñā who clearly had no qualms about such things. 

It's likely that Prajñā taught Kūkai Sanskrit (ca 802-804), which is a notable contribution. And relevant to my work since Kūkai later (ca 834) composed the first esoteric Buddhist commentary of the Heart Sutra, though curiously Kūkai commented on the Xīn jīng rather than Prajñā's version. 

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Lopez, Donald S. (1996) Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sutra. Princeton University Press.

Siu, Sai-yau 蕭世友 (2019). 唐代般若、利言《般若波羅蜜多心經》的漢譯研究 . 香港中文大學. [On the Chinese Translation of Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya by Prajña and Satyacandra in the Tang Dynasty. PhD Dissertation. Chinese University of Hong Kong].

———. 2024. The Evolution of Team-Based Buddhist Scripture Translation in Tang China. Springer. [Open access online publication] https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-981-97-2293-8 [accessed 7 Nov 2024]

Tsukinowa, Kenryū 月輪 賢隆. (1954). “般若三蔵の翻經に対する批議.” [Criticism of Prajna Tripitaka's Translation of Sutras]. Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū 4(2): 434-443.

Watanabe, Shōgo. (1990). “Móhē bānrě bōluómì shénzhòu jīng and Móhē bānrě bōluómì dàmíngzhòu jīng, As Seen in the Sutra Catalogues.” Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū 39-1: 54–58. [= 渡辺章悟. 1990. 「経録からみた『摩訶般若波羅蜜神呪経』と『摩訶般若波羅蜜大明呪経』」印度学仏教学研究 39-1: 54–58.]. My English translation is online: https://tinyurl.com/33n3d8h4

On Abstract Thought and Nominalism.

A curious feature of philosophy, as a field of human enquiry, is that it seems almost impossible to make progress. Thousands of philosophy articles and books are published every year, and they discuss interesting nuances and aspects of their chosen topics. But the next philosopher who comes along produces their own take on the topic. And the next. We can apparently endlessly create new narratives, and always find new arguments to make, but we very seldom arrive at anything like a consensus. One gets the sense that consensus is anathema to philosophers. Thousands of years have gone by and still, we cannot definitively say a realist or idealist view of the world is more accurate. To my mind, this says that something is fundamentally wrong with the way that we approach philosophy.

I no longer recall where I first encountered the idea of nominalism, but ever since, it has had a profound effect on how I think about philosophical problems. Nominalism is a wonderful tool for cutting through bullshit and restoring pointless philosophy to usefulness.

In this essay, I will briefly introduce the topic and provide my definition of nominalism. I will outline a general critique of the hypostatisation and/or reification of abstractions and then use the example of "consciousness" as a case study. This leads back to some more general conclusions about the limits of metaphysics.

Nominalism

Nominalism began as a rejection of "universals" (which we can ignore). In modern terms, nominalism is often described as a rejection of abstract objects, or more specifically as the proposition that abstract objects don't exist. However, I take a more pragmatic approach focused on epistemology. As I employ nominalism, it involves a series of propositions:

• An abstraction is not an object, it is an idea about objects.
• Abstract thought involves conceptual metaphors, i.e. metaphorically treating ideas as objects to which verbs can be metaphorically applied. 
• Two problems occur: Hypostatisation treats abstractions as if they have independent existence and reification treats them as if they have physical form.
• Treating ideas as independent things and/or as having physical form is a category error.
• Belief is a feeling about an idea.*

* Hat tip to Michael Taft who tweeted "Belief is an emotion about an idea" on 8 May 2018. 

Thus, my view is that abstractions are not objects at all, so arguing that such objects don't exist is beside the point. The important part is that abstractions are ideas. Here, I don't mean "ideas" in the Platonic sense, I just mean a mental representation of something, which may include thoughts, imagery, schemas (as defined by Mark Johnson), and emotions. (Note: I am aware that "abstraction" is itself an abstraction).

Thoughts may be said to exist since we do have thoughts and they affect how we behave. John Searle, for example, talks about thoughts having a "subjective mode of being". This is a pragmatic idea and it allows that an experience is epistemically objective for the person having it. It doesn't stop us from knowing about subjective states, because, as above we can compare notes about our subjectivity and discover that subjectivity has shared properties. For example, most people have an inner monologue. This is an epistemically objective fact. As John Searle puts it:

The ontological subjectivity of the domain [of consciousness] does not prevent us from having an epistemically objective science of that domain.

Or as Mary Midgley put it: 

Subjectivity is an objective fact.

However, it is not possible to fit ideas or their components into an ontology of objects: we cannot see ideas, cannot hear, smell, taste, or touch them. Ideas require their own ontology (I'll come back to this in my conclusions).

Abstractions may be expressed via abstract nouns, or a concrete noun may be used abstractly. Articles  commonly indicate whether a noun is being used in a concrete or abstract sense. Compare, for example, "Space, the final frontier" with "A space for everything"

A number of important concepts in philosophy are abstractions, including: consciousness, reality, truth, existence, and causation (these are all concepts from metaphysics). Concepts such as space and time, are also used abstractly. Numbers are abstract. Categories and their arrangement into taxonomies are also abstractions.

An abstraction conceptualises and generalises some aspect of experience. And this can be very useful. However, as noted, things can go wrong.

Many philosophical problems remain insoluble because they involve hypostatized and/or reified abstractions. For example, although we virtually all use the term "reality" to mean something substantive; "reality" is an abstract noun. The related concrete noun is "real". Defining "real" is difficult, however. Metaphysical definitions often involve "real", "existent", and "true" chasing each other around. An object is real if it exists; a proposition is true if it conveys something real. And so on.

Ask a philosopher, "What is the nature of reality?" and you may get a book-length reply, explaining in their own special jargon how we should think and feel about reality. However, if you ask another philosopher, their answer could well be completely different and involve a completely different jargon (or worse, the same jargon terms used differently). The two answers are likely to be mutually exclusive. For example, if the first philosopher is a realist and the second is an idealist. If I ask a realist and an idealist what is the nature of reality, at the end of the day, I'm still none the wiser about the nature of reality. And asking a third philosopher only makes things worse, not better. 

There is no general agreement amongst
philosophers or scientists about the nature of reality. 

We should pause to appreciate this statement. How can something so seemingly fundamental as "reality" be a constant source of confusion and conflict for thousands of years? 

This is where nominalism comes into its own. 

Ask me the same question, "What is the nature of reality?". I observe that "reality" is an abstract noun. And that "reality" is an abstraction. Thus "reality" is not an object, not a thing; "reality" is an idea about some objects (in this case real objects). The nature of all abstractions is that they are abstract. Ergo, I answer that the nature of reality is abstract. Reality is not a thing, it is an idea about things.

Nominalism cuts through philosophical bullshit and obscurantism. And it explains why we can't agree about abstractions like "reality". Ideas about reality are, to some extent, limited by the properties of phenomena, but within such limits, the imagination is free to run wild (and it does). And as long as a narrative has internal consistency, a philosopher is allowed to propose that it is the answer. As Douglas Adams observed (in HHGTTG), there is no incentive for academic philosophers to agree because if they did, they'd be out of a job.

The problem is not abstractions or abstract thought per se. Thinking in abstract terms can, for example, give us leverage on general problems. And most of the problems we face in daily life are general.

It helps to be aware of what kind of process abstract thinking is. In abstract thought, we, metaphorically treat an idea as a thing. So, for example, no one will be confused if I say: "I hope everyone grasps my idea of nominalism".

In a proposition like "grasp an idea" the cognitive metaphor is IDEAS ARE OBJECTS. (Following Lakoff and Johnson, I use the convention of stating cognitive metaphors in small caps). Applying this metaphor allows us to talk about ideas using verbs applicable to objects. We can toss the idea around, or kick it into the long grass. I may juggle ideas, turn them over in my mind, save them for later, or throw them out. Once the metaphorical link between ideas and objects is invoked, then we can metaphorically (or imaginatively and linguistically) interact with an idea as though it is an object. Any action applicable to an object can now be metaphorically applied to an idea. And statements reflecting such metaphors are seen as valid.

This opens up all kinds of possibilities for understanding the world and communicating our understanding. It enriches our minds to be able to imaginatively and linguistically interact with ideas in this way.

The use of cognitive metaphors is transparent and intuitive. If I say, "inflation is up", you don't need me to translate the physical metaphor drawn from our experiences of verticality or to say how that idea maps onto the idea of increasing and decreasing. This mode of expression can be sophisticated. If, for example, "inflation is up", then UP IS BAD, but if "wages are up", then UP IS GOOD. And we are not confused by this; it intuitively makes sense. Similarly, your house can burn down if it goes up in flames: two opposite spatial metaphors for the same event. Or I could say "Fire consumed your house". Coincidentally, this morning I told my neighbour (who cannot read or write) that I needed to hang my washing up. He quipped: "Washing doesn't hang up, it hangs down!"

None of this is counter-intuitive, or only accessible to intellectuals or people with an education (my neighbour has none to speak of). It doesn't require formal instruction. We all do it all the time without paying attention to it. We can make and understand such metaphors on the fly, and even use them for wordplay. The problems emerge when such metaphors are hypostatised and/or reified. Hypostatisation treats abstractions as if they have independent existence, while reification treats them as if they have physical form.

Since I rely on the idea of an "emergent property" in what follows and this is a disputed term, I want to say a few words on how I use it and relate it to the problem of ideological reductionism.

Emergentism versus Reductionism

I use the term "emergent property" with a very specific, pragmatic definition:

An emergent property is a property that an object has by virtue of its structure, rather than its substance.

I drew this definition from the book Analysis and the Fullness of Reality, by Richard H. Jones (who has also translated and commented on the works of Nāgārjuna and some Prajñāpāramitā texts; amongst many other interesting projects).

My contention, following Jones, is that structure is real; at least it is as real as substance is. The universe cannot be adequately described by either one in isolation. Structures persist over time, for example. Structures can interact with item objects and change them. For any meaningful definition of "real", structures and systems are real. 

When I look at arguments over emergent properties, the main problem appears to be defining "emergent", which often invokes another abstraction, "causation". By linking emergence to something concrete like structure rather than something abstract like causation, my definition pragmatically avoids this controversy. However, since philosophers cannot agree on a definition of "emergent", perhaps it would be better to refer to structural properties and contrast them with contrast substantive properties. So let's revise the definition:

A structural property is a property that an object has by virtue of its structure, rather than its substance.

I mainly talk about this in terms of structure, which represents the static aspect of this idea. We can also talk in terms of systems which represents on the dynamic aspect. For example, the unit of life is a structure called a "cell". The structure of, say, the bilipid membrane, gives a cell distinctive properties.  At the same time, a cell is also a complex dynamic system within which parts are interacting; and which, as a whole, interacts with it's environment. 

But let's take a relatively simple and static example for clarity. My home is made of bricks. It could be reduced, conceptually or literally, to a stack of bricks. But if I want my home to keep the weather out and the heat in (I'm writing in mid-winter and it's -5° C outside), then a stack of bricks is no use to me. To make a home, I have to give structure to the bricks, arranging them just so and sticking them in place with mortar. The properties involved in keeping the weather out are only partially related to the substance of bricks. I grew up in a home made of wood, for example, and it kept the weather out just fine. The primary properties that keep the weather out are not substantive, but structural. To claim that a stack of bricks is somehow more real than a home made of bricks is neither cogent nor salient.

The reductionist asserts that if an object can be reduced to component parts; then the components are more real than the whole. And "reality" only resides at the level that is indivisible (echoing the atomic theory of Democritus but also reifying "reality"). Thus the reductionist effectively asserts that complex objects are not real, or at best that they are less real than simple(r) objects. This is how most science is taught, so it comes to seem intuitive (I never questioned it during my science education).

However, for some scientists, this reductionist worldview is extremely unhelpful. In biology, for example, we may well reduce an organism (via dissection for example) to discover more about its substantive properties. However, to really understand an organism, one has to look at the emergent/structural properties; i.e. one has to view it whole and alive. One has to see it interacting with its environment, seeking food and mates, avoiding pests and predators. One has to see the environment in ecological terms: life never exists in isolation; life is always massively interdependent: interacting systems within systems. Living things cannot be fully understood via reductionism, and the partial understanding that we do get is minimal. In a sense, no instance of life makes sense except in the context of all life.

The reductionist worldview, then, when expressed as views about the nature of reality is quite bizarre because it excludes all structures and systems; all structural or systemic properties. As human beings, everything we interact with is a complex structure/system.

While it is true that complex objects are physically reducible, structural properties are not. When you reduce a complex object to its component parts, you destroy the structure and you destroy the structural properties associated with the structure. For example, a ship made of steel may float, despite the fact that steel is eight times denser than water because the structure of the hull incorporates a large volume that lowers the average density of the object (typically the shape is also optimised for moving through the water). If I reduce the ship to a single huge, solid ingot of steel, it no longer has the property of buoyancy in water. The property belongs to the structure, not the substance. A ship is a real thing, it has its own distinctive properties that are largely independent of its substance. 

Reductionism offers us ways to explore and understand substances and substantive properties. In order to explore and understand structures and structural properties, we have to take the opposite approach variously called anti-reductionism, emergentism, or holism. I'd call it "structuralism" but that's already taken.

Let's apply this understanding to an example: the nature of consciousness.

Consciousness

Consciousness is always a hot topic in Buddhism. In my lifetime, it has also become a hot topic amongst neurobiologists. This is one of the things that Buddhists claim to have a good (even, the best) understanding of. And yet Buddhist accounts of consciousness clash with other traditional Indian accounts, not to mention scientific accounts. How can we know who is right about consciousness? It seems that we cannot. Arguments about the nature of consciousness go on and there is no consensus in sight, despite considerable progress in understanding brains. We cannot even agree on what consciousness is. There is no broadly accepted definition. This dilemma should be familiar by now. 

When smart people have argued about something for a century and there is no resolution in sight, it's time to reassess the question. When it's more than 20 centuries and there's still no end in sight, it's time to question the whole enterprise.

I submit that the problem lies with hypostatising and reifying consciousness as an independent real thing. For example, when post-humanists talk about "uploading [their] consciousness", they are treating consciousness both as an independent entity (hypostatisation) and treating it as something that has a physical location (reification). Moving an object from one location to another is one of the main ways we interact with objects.

The nominalist critique is to point out that "consciousness" is not an object; it's an abstraction, and thus (at best) an idea about a thing. The nature of consciousness is abstract.

And yet the website PhilPapers—a social media site for academic philosophers—is overflowing with works on "consciousness" as a thing. Notably all the articles on the so-called "hard problem of consciousness". Lay people often take consciousness to be a thing. When, for example, Deepak Chopra says "consciousness is the ground of all being" he treats consciousness as a fundamental substance shaping reality rather than a mental process. Or Eckhart Tolle: "Consciousness is who you are at the deepest level". Or Shirley MacLaine: "Crystals amplify the consciousness". Or Stephen Hawking: "I think the brain is essentially a computer and consciousness is like a computer program." And, as mentioned, all talk of "transferring" or "uploading" consciousness.

Note here that where we talk about "the brain" as a separate entity from the body, we are also engaging in hypostatisation. The brain has to be embodied to function. It needs skeletal support, it needs a blood supply containing oxygen, glucose, ATP, and so on. The body functions as a unified system. It may seem intuitive to hypostatise the brain, but it's not accurate. If you take the brain out of the body, the brain cannot function. 

Moreover, we know that single cells, right down to bacteria are intelligent in the sense that they make decisions and can learn. A slime mould, for example, can learn and retain knowledge for generations. A planaria worm can learn a maze and retain that knowledge even after it is decapitated and grows a new head and brain. Bacteria have survived for something like 4 billion years, including 6 mass extinctions.

It seems that all life is intelligent in the sense of being able to learn and adapt (to some extent) to environmental changes. But only animals are conscious. "Intelligence" per se is not strongly connected to brains or consciousness. Or better perhaps, brains are a special case of cellular intelligence, in which structure magnifies basic cellular intelligence by orders of magnitude. 

As far as anyone knows, a mind cannot be independent of the embodied brain that creates it. A huge number of studies show that damage to a brain = damage to the associated mind, with a good deal of specificity. Ghost stories notwithstanding, no one has experienced or observed conscious states that are independent of an embodied brain. And indeed we may say that a specific brain is related to a specific mind. The idea, for example, that the same mind could exist in a different brain, or some brain substitute like a computer, is clearly dependent on hypostatizing consciousness and decoupling it from the brain.

As far as anyone knows, consciousness does not have a location within the brain. Rather, conscious states are a structural property of the whole, embodied brain. Equally, conscious states cannot be located outside of the brain; rather they are a structural property of embodied brains. Thus the idea that one could move consciousness from one to another physical location involves reification.

Conscious states are states characterised by having conscious content; the waking state can be characterised as awareness of sensory experience (which includes mental experiences such as ideas and, notably, our sense of self). We are conscious—i.e. we experience a succession of conscious states—for part of the day, and therefore it can seem commonsensical to speak of "consciousness" in the abstract and to employ verbs metaphorically.

That said, it seems to be very difficult to avoid hypostatisation and/or reification of the idea of consciousness. And once we start asking substantive questions of a structural property, we're down the metaphysical rabbit hole. One may examine the phenomenology of a conscious state, and to some extent, one may generalise about conscious states. But if we start trying to talk about consciousness in concrete terms—i.e. "a consciousness", "the consciousness" or "your consciousness"—we're treating an idea as a thing. And this is a category error. 

Consciousness is an idea (that we have about experiencing conscious states). It is a useful enough idea until we try to make it into a thing. Then it becomes a hindrance.

Other things being equal, what applies to "reality" and "consciousness", applies to all abstractions. And if it applies to all abstractions, then it applies to all of metaphysics. Our different ideas about metaphysics have been causing arguments, fights, and wars for all of recorded history. And we still have no idea which idea is the "right" idea, nor any viable method to approach deciding the issue. And thus I question the whole enterprise.

The problem seems to be that some people claim to know things that, as far as I can tell, no one can possibly know. And if one needed one slam-dunk critique of such claims, it is this: despite the fact that they all claim to know reality directly, those who "know" all make different claims. A defining feature of "real" objects, is that they don't depend on the observer. So if all the conclusions about reality are distinctly observer-dependent, then something has gone catastrophically wrong. And we need to go back to the drawing board.

Epistemic Privilege

Kant had already observed, in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), that no one has direct access to knowledge about reality. We all rely on sensory experience to gain information about the world. From a modern perspective, we all have more or less the same sensory equipment. Sensory experience is the result of a series of identical electrochemical nerve signals arriving in the brain. What such signals tell us about the world is governed by where in the brain they arrive (and how often). In synaesthesia, signals from one sensory modality leak into a different part of the brain, so that synaesthete may "see sounds" for example.

Mental activity is an internally generated sensory experience. Mental activity may relate to real-world objects, but it doesn't have to. We can sometimes infer valid knowledge from thinking, but we also make a lot of invalid inferences (Wikipedia lists +100 logical fallacies and +100 cognitive biases).

And there is no way around this. Humans have no "reality faculty" that allows us to know reality directly. Everything is mediated by electrochemical signals in nerves and neurons. The early Buddhists' view was much less sophisticated, but they do seem to have understood that an ontology of mental activity had to be distinct from an ontology of things. The Abhidharma, for example, is primarily (though not only) an ontology of sensory experience.

However, if you hang around with Buddhists you will find that they do claim epistemic privilege: they do claim to know "reality" or even "the nature of reality". This claim never sat well with me. But it took me many years of study and reflection to be able to articulate why. For example, there's no sign of the Buddha claiming to know "reality" in Buddhist scripture. He does make all kinds of claims to knowledge, some of it metaphysical. But he does not claim to know "reality". I would go as far as to say that there is no such concept in early Buddhist literature.

Sue Hamilton, noted that Early Buddhism was focused on experience. And while they clearly held some metaphysical commitments concerning, for example—space, time, and causation—they are simply background assumptions, not worked-out philosophic conclusions. All their intellectual effort goes into preserving myths and discussing the mental, physical, and magical effects of practising the Buddha's way. Whether we like it or not magic was part of Buddhism because it was everywhere in that milieu.

Buddhist practices result in all kinds of altered mental states. The pursuit of such states can have lasting positive effects on some people. But I no longer accept that any of these states is closer to reality than waking experience. I no longer believe that meditation conduces to "insights into reality" at all. As I say, I don't believe there is a word in Pāli that means "reality" as I understand it.

The proposition that no one has epistemic privilege means that all of metaphysics boils down to a discussion of ideas about reality. There are opinions about reality but an opinion is another word for a belief. And a belief is a feeling about an idea. 

In this light, the failure of philosophers to make any progress in metaphysics makes sense. Metaphysicians are not arguing from valid knowledge; they are arguing from ideas about what might be valid knowledge. 

At the same time, however, we do know how to draw valid inferences about reality. By closely observing phenomena and comparing notes, we can show that some experiences are different for everyone, and some experiences are the same for everyone. We call the former "subjective" and the latter "objective".

On one hand, everyone standing on top of a tall building experiences a unique range of subjective responses to the location, the view, the weather, the light, and so on. But everyone who jumps off the building is objectively accelerated towards the surface of the earth at 9.8 m/s ± 0.1 m/s until they reach terminal velocity in the order of 200 km/h (this figure is less precise because it is dependent on atmospheric pressure, humidity, wind speed, the size and shape of the person, what clothing they are wearing, and so on).

450 years of science have gifted us with some exquisitely precise descriptions of how objects behave under a variety of circumstances. We know these inferences are accurate, and can even say quite precisely how accurate they are and under what circumstances they have that level of precision.

The lack of epistemic privilege juxtaposed with the ability to draw accurate and precise inferences about reality more or less sums up the dilemma faced by Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). The former position was epitomised by the writing of David Hume (1711–1776); the latter by Isaac Newton's Principia (1687). Kant solved the dilemma by pointing out that metaphysical objects like space, time, and causation are in fact pre-existing ideas that humans have about experience. We impose structure on experience in order to make sense of it. However, for Kant, this meant that reality was always inaccessible and unknowable. As he was writing before modern science really got going He didn't really allow for valid inferences about reality by comparing notes.

Conclusions

Many of the seemingly intractable problems in philosophy and almost all mentions of consciousness in general literature involve  abstractions. Nominalism gives us a powerful tool for resolving such disputes, by drawing attention to what abstractions are, i.e. abstractions are ideas, and ideas are not things. 

Abstractions are not problematic per se. On the contrary, it is very useful to think in abstract, generalised, categorised ways. Most of the problems that we face in daily life are ameliorated by our ability to think in abstract and/or metaphorical terms. Moreover, the application of metaphorical verbs to ideas, via cognitive metaphors, gives us an extensive vocabulary for discussing ideas.

We run into problems when we treat subjective ideas as independent objects (hypostatisation) and/or when we treat them as having physical form (reification). Or when we treat metaphorical actions as real actions.

Ideas are not always grounded in reality. The idea of unicorns has sparked a great deal of speculation, mythology, and art. Still, unicorns have never existed. The idea of a unicorn may well draw on real horses and real animals with horns, but a horse with a single horn is an idea with no counterpart in the world. Imagination is not limited by reality.

This means, however, that we can't use the same ontology to describe both ideas and things. Things that are independent of our minds (objective) have one ontology; while ideas that are wholly dependent on our minds (subjective) have a completely different ontology. Language seems to be somewhere in between and may require its own ontology.

For example, the whole field of science is an ontology of the objective. Within this are more specific ontologies like the atomic theory of matter, the standard model of particle physics, or the Linnean taxonomy of life. By contrast, we might think of an encyclopedia or an encyclopedic dictionary (like the Oxford English Dictionary) as an ontology of ideas. And finally, we might think of a grammar manual as an ontology of language. A more general ontology of everything loses all specificity and is quite useless in practice. One suspects the same will be true for any "theory of everything" that scientists come up with. We already know, for example, that nanoscale physics is totally impractical in the macro-world. 

Nominalism can reduce the amount of time that we spend on intractable problems that are caused by the hypostatisation and/or reification of ideas (and language). It amounts to better intellectual hygiene when it comes to abstract objects and metaphorical actions. Arguing over the nature of abstractions—like "reality" or "consciousness"—is a waste of time. 

The nature of all abstract concepts is that they are abstract. Abstractions are ideas about things. "Reality" is an idea about real things. "Consciousness" is an idea about conscious states. Arguably, how we feel about ideas is more significant in human discourse, than the idea itself. Belief is a feeling about an idea. 

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Johnson, Mark. (1987). The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination and Reason. University of Chicago Press. [a long discussion of schemas]

Jones, Richard H. (2013). Analysis & the Fullness of Reality: An Introduction to Reductionism & Emergence. Jackson Square Books.

Lakoff, George. (1987). Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G. & Johnson, M. (2003). Metaphors We Live By. New Ed. [Originally published 1981]. University of Chicago Press.

Searle, John R. (1992). The Rediscovery of the Mind. MIT Press.

Searle, John R. (1995). The Construction of Social Reality. Penguin.