Gravity and Impermanence?

A discussion on all aspects of Theravāda Buddhism
Mawkish1983
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Re: Gravity and Impermanence?

Post by Mawkish1983 »

That doesn't resolve the problem of the equivalence principle.
rahul3bds
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Re: Gravity and Impermanence?

Post by rahul3bds »

nrose619 wrote:I have a philosophy club at my school and in today's meeting I said that almost everything is impermanent. One person disagreed saying that the law of gravity is permanent it was always here and always will be. I said gravity is dependent on mass therefore it is not a permanent self sustaining force/thing. Also, what about in dead space where there is an absence of gravity? He continued to restate that it's a law and has been scientifically proven therefore it is permanent. We both kinda ended up in a dead end. Any thoughts on this?

-Nick
From wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_constant

According to the law of universal gravitation, the attractive force (F) between two bodies is proportional to the product of their masses (m1 and m2), and inversely proportional to the square of the distance, r, (inverse-square law) between them:

F=Gm1m2/r2

The constant of proportionality, G, is the gravitational constant.

The gravitational constant is a physical constant that is difficult to measure with high accuracy.In SI units, the 2010 CODATA-recommended value of the gravitational constant (with standard uncertainty in parentheses) is:

G=6.67384(80)×10−11

with relative standard uncertainty 1.2×10−4.


when your classmate said "that the law of gravity is permanent it was always here and always will be", he was merely referring to the universal constancy of the gravitational constant "G".
Blue part is what proving him wrong. Constant G is measured with high accuracy with "uncertainty", which means that the exact value of G, can never be determined.

Just ask him the exact or absolute value of gravity (i.e. "G"), devoid of uncertainty.
Spiny Norman
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Re: Gravity and Impermanence?

Post by Spiny Norman »

retrofuturist wrote:I agree with what Dave has said above, and would go one step further and suggest that if dhammas are experiences, and sankhata dhammas are formed/conditioned experiences... then gravity falls outside the scope of both of these as it is neither of them. Gravity is not an experience... experiences are experienced via the six-sense-bases. Even if you could argue that gravity is experienced, then it is the experience of gravity that is impermanent in the Buddha's teaching.
And yet we experience gravity directly as weight, ie pressure on the parts of our body currently in contact with a solid surface.

I think there is a basis in the suttas for saying that anicca applies objectively as well as subjectively. As you know form ( rupa ) is classified in terms of the 4 great elements, ie earth, wind, water and fire. But in some suttas the elements are sub-divided into internal and external, so for example internally the water element would be bodily fluids while externally it would be water in the seas, lakes etc ( see for example MN28, MN62 and MN140 ).

The suttas also make it clear that all types of form are subject to impermanence ( anicca ), and logically this includes external form - the external world.
Buddha save me from new-agers!
chownah
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Re: Gravity and Impermanence?

Post by chownah »

nrose619 wrote:I have a philosophy club at my school and in today's meeting I said that almost everything is impermanent. One person disagreed saying that the law of gravity is permanent it was always here and always will be. I said gravity is dependent on mass therefore it is not a permanent self sustaining force/thing. Also, what about in dead space where there is an absence of gravity? He continued to restate that it's a law and has been scientifically proven therefore it is permanent. We both kinda ended up in a dead end. Any thoughts on this?

-Nick
For me the biggest problem here is the notion that scientific laws are permanent. Scientific laws are just theories which have withstood the tests of time. They are theories which so accurately predict things or explain things that virtually all scientists accept theme as their MODEL of reality. Note that it is only a model of reality and does not define reality but only DESCRIBES reality in a way that helps in predicting or understanding. The law of gravity is just an idea that is very successful in predicting a lot of things. If you have time go read up on Sir Isaac Newton and the controversy which arose when he suggested that there was something called gravity which caused things to fall the way they did and that caused celestial bodies to move the way they did. Scientists were very hesitant to accept this new fangled idea pf gravity because there was no explanation of where it came from or how it worked.....it was only because Newton's theory was so incredibly accurate at predicting things that eventually it was accepted among the bulk of scientists who just gave up on getting some kind of information about gravity itself......and do you know that Newtons "law" turns out to be very accurate to a certain degree of precision but with the invention of good clocks it has been determined that his law is not quite right. I believe that Einstein predicted an error in Newton's law by timing how long it took for the planet Mercury to transit the sun.....or something like that....I think... If I remember correctly.

Bottom line is that scientific laws are just popular ideas...they are rising and falling all the time.
chownah
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Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Gravity and Impermanence?

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

This is from the Mahāsutasoma Jātaka quoted in my story about Porisada, who would later become Angulimāla.

‘To associate with the wise, even only on one occasion is of great advantage;
to associate with the foolish even on many occasions is of no benefit.’

‘One should associate with the wise and listen to their teaching;
one who does will become noble-minded,
no harm comes from learning the teaching of the wise.’

‘The splendid royal chariots, once so beautiful, grow old and decay,
but the teaching of the wise is ageless and never changes,
this is what the wise talk about among themselves.’

‘The sky is very far from the earth, and the earth is very far from the heavens,
but farther apart than these are the teaching of the wise and the teaching of the foolish.’
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mirco
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Re: Gravity and Impermanence?

Post by mirco »

nrose619 wrote:I have a philosophy club at my school and in today's meeting I said
I think, that's the problem. Leave the club.
Discussions at philosophy clubs only lead to wrong views, if there is not at least one arahat present. :thinking:

The All-embracing Net of Views (Brahmajāla Sutta)

Regards,
Mirco
inpractice
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Re: Gravity and Impermanence?

Post by inpractice »

Gravity being weaker the further apart two masses are. Also, before big bang, there is no sun or earth, so there is no sun's gravity or earth's gravity.
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mirco
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Re: Gravity and Impermanence?

Post by mirco »

Hi inpractice,
inpractice wrote:Gravity being weaker the further apart two masses are.
Also, before big bang, there is no sun or earth, so there is no sun's gravity or earth's gravity.
What makes you think there have been no suns and planets befor the last big bang?


.
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Jason
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Re: Gravity and Impermanence?

Post by Jason »

nrose619 wrote:I have a philosophy club at my school and in today's meeting I said that almost everything is impermanent. One person disagreed saying that the law of gravity is permanent it was always here and always will be. I said gravity is dependent on mass therefore it is not a permanent self sustaining force/thing. Also, what about in dead space where there is an absence of gravity? He continued to restate that it's a law and has been scientifically proven therefore it is permanent. We both kinda ended up in a dead end. Any thoughts on this?
Here's my two cents. The Buddha says in many places that "all fabrications are inconstant" (sabbe sankara anicca) (e.g., SN 22.90). Anicca simply means inconstant; and in terms of compounded phenomena, particularly in reference to the five aggregates, it implies change and lack of self (because whatever is inconstant and subject to change isn't fit to be called 'me' or 'mine'). If gravity isn't a compounded phenomenon, then it, like nibbana, would be nicca, constant.

If, however, gravity is a compounded phenomenon, then its existence can technically be infinite (i.e., lasting as long as the duration of the universe) as long as the conditions for its continuation are present since it's logically possible that "when this is [indefinitely or for very long cosmological periods], that is [indefinitely or for very long cosmological periods]." Gravity itself is inconstant and changes in the sense that it depends on the mass and distance between to objects; and its existence and constancy as a universal phenomenon depends on the universe being exactly as it is, which may not be the case in for other universes, if they exist, or the fate of this universe when it ends.

So I'd say that, from one point of view (that of the experience of gravity), gravity is inconstant, and its perceived constancy in the other (as a universal phenomenon) depends upon certain conditions that themselves are potentially inconstant, which is consistent with the Buddha's statement that "all fabrications are inconstant." And if gravity isn't a compounded phenomenon, then its constancy doesn't contradict the the Buddha's statement that "all fabrications are inconstant."
"Sabbe dhamma nalam abhinivesaya" (AN 7.58).

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acinteyyo
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Re: Gravity and Impermanence?

Post by acinteyyo »

nrose619 wrote:I have a philosophy club at my school and in today's meeting I said that almost everything is impermanent. One person disagreed saying that the law of gravity is permanent it was always here and always will be. Any thoughts on this?
Hi Nick,

so let's recapitulate what you said. You said almost everything is impermanent. Why did you say almost? And why did one person disagree with bringing up one example when you didn't say that everything is impermanent in the first place but just almost everything. I'm just asking rhetorically.

Imho in philosophical discussions it's important to formulate an accurate premise first. Lay down a general framework and only then start to discuss a topic.
What is your premise?

best wishes, acinteyyo
Thag 1.20. Ajita - I do not fear death; nor do I long for life. I’ll lay down this body, aware and mindful.
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