Let's talk about the moon. People in the pre-scientific world mostly believed the phases of the moon were actual physical changes that occur on the moon. Now we know the moon by itself isn't creating the phases of the moon.
If you were to ask two scientists what causes the phases of the moon, however, you might get two very different answers. A physicist probably would tell you that the phases are caused by the earth's shadow -- a physical form (the earth) is blocking some of the sunlight reaching the moon, and changes in the light bounced back to earth from the moon create the appearance of changing moon phases.
But a neuroscientist might tell you that changes in the moon's appearance are being created in your brain. This is not to say that matter and energy and light and whatever don't exist. There is stuff, and this stuff in proximity to our individual bodies stimulates our sense organs -- eyes in this case -- which send signals to the brain. And the brain creates the experience of seeing the moon.
This doesn't mean the physicist and the neuroscientist disagree with each other; they're just looking at the same phenomenon from different perspectives.� The physicist is focused on matter and how matter moves in space and time. The neuroscientist is focused on how phenomena are processed by the brain and nervous system to create sensation and experience.
Within their own spheres of knowledge, both scientists are (as far as I know) correct. And Buddhism does not disagree with this, not even with the physicist. The Buddha himself taught that form follows its own natural law (utu niyama). From a Buddhist perspective, the physicist is just acquiring knowledge about utu niyama.
For this reason, I disagree with people who say that science is just another belief system. Within its own sphere of activity, belief is not required. The physicist can observe the light waves bouncing around the solar system and gain knowledge about the natural laws light waves follow. And other physicists, working independently, who measure the same phenomenon will likely acquire very similar knowledge, although they may draw different conclusions.
Awhile back I wrote a post called "Quantum Questions" that Id like to quote from --
They [physicists] are asking deep questions about the relationship between attributes and the entities said to bear the attributes. As His Holiness the Dalai Lama points out, this touches on the arguments used in Madhyamika to negate the intrinsic reality of things -- all phenomena are temporary confluences of attributes, empty of an intrinsic "self" or "thing," taking identity only in relationship to other phenomena.
Professor Luisi provides a couple of quotes from pioneering physicists� -- Neil Bohr said, "In our description of nature, the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of phenomena but only to track down, so far as possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience." And Werner Heisenberg said, "The world thus appears as a complicated tissue of events, in which connections of different kinds alternate or overlap or combine, and thereby determine the texture of the whole." Sounds familiar.
I'd like to repeat the quote by Bohr -- In our description of nature, the purpose is not to disclose the real essence of phenomena but only to track down, so far as possible, relations between the manifold aspects of our experience.
Science is a belief system when scientists can't make that distinction; when they think their scientific knowledge discloses the real essence of phenomena. But science is quite good at tracking down relations between the manifold aspects of our experience, and understood that way it isn't a belief system.
If you understand science as a process for acquiring knowledge about phenomena rather than as a set of "facts" frozen in a textbook, it doesn't look much like a belief system. If scientists understand that their knowledge is relative and conditioned, then it isn't a belief system.
As Mila said in the comments to the last post, the problem is that scientists (quantum physicists excepted) rarely question their metaphysical assumptions because they don't recognize those assumptions to be assumptions. A lot of them are certain there are only two ways to understand existence -- their way or superstition. If you start talking about the limits of perception to them, they assume you want them to believe in fairies.
This is a very complex topic I could go on about for some time, but I think I will stop here. I only want to add that isn't is lovely that Buddhist iconography uses the moon to symbolize enlightenment, and not the sun? What most of us think of as the moon is mostly a big light show; the reflected light of the sun. And we only see one side of the moon; the other side is perpetually dark. It's something to reflect on.
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